This sprouted entirely after reading Ivan's fic Kammerspiel (on AO3, which you should definitely read; it's absolutely amazing!) and us talking about dirt gremlin Tolys. Add a dash of desperate need for vampires and here we are ✨✨✨
The weather had been fair for days, summer edging on the horizon, waiting for its chance to sweep the land up in its hazy daze. Life flourished in the forests: sprouting, budding, flowering, loving, birthing, breathing.
Tolys knelt by the riverside, the whispers of the faeries around him like chimes in the wind. They liked to gossip around him, though he cared little. Cleaning his face with the crystal clear water, courtesy of the river spirits living upstream in the east, he thought about the ingredients he would need for the ritual later that week. Sprigs of dried herb still hung around his small cabin, but he needed some freshly picked mushrooms as well as some dust from the chatterboxes fluttering around him.
He humoured them, offering a small vial filled with an opaque blue liquid, much craved for its multi-use properties. In return two flitted off and returned, carrying a small pouch of dust between them. They zoomed around his head as he pocketed it.
They did not follow him deeper into the forest, there where the light hardly touched. But Tolys asked the wisps to light the way for him as always. Their eerie icy blue hue circled around the dusky clearings, the canopy of the trees shadowing the forest floor. Tolys moved with a practised ease, kneeling among the leaves in the soggy dirt and digging around the earth to find the mushrooms and fungi he needed.
With a quick spell, he conjured the basket he had forgotten at home and filled it with the necessities, pausing as he bowed his thanks to the fire spirits, the blue flames dancing for a happy moment before vanishing with a flicker and a shush.
Slowly, he meandered back, enjoying everything the forest had to offer: its sights, its smells, its sounds—he heard the humming of the spirits, the twittering of the birds, the rustling of the foliage, the activity that thrummed through every fibre of nature.
His small stone house (hut, as others called it) was covered in mossy growth, trees looming over, yet keeping a respectable distance. Beside the tall grass, the wildflowers and the weeds (which he had to tend to at some point), there was little in terms of decoration outside. There was no need for. However, after taking some generously provided feedback (though entirely unprompted), Tolys had built a small overhung patio, with uneven tiles and a simple hardwood bench (softened with a multitude of pillows when sat upon naturally) so time could be spent outside where no one had to sit in the mud or the sun (though Tolys wouldn't mind at all). Smoke billowed from the chimney as it always did, diluted by magic before dissipating in the blue sky.
In front of his small stone house (or hut) stood Feliks, wearing round eighties-style sunglasses and a wide-brimmed felt hat adorned with gemstones and feathers. He was wearing something distinctly fashionable, except from approximately the early eighteenth century, long sleeved and properly collared.
"About time," Feliks said, tapping his foot impatiently. He lowered his sunglasses, giving Tolys a critical one-over, lingering on his mud-stained boots and green-stained clothes. He clucked his tongue disapprovingly.
Tolys ignored his attitude, reaching up to finger the material of Feliks' sleeve, and smiled teasingly. "A delia? Really, Feliks?"
Feliks scoffed. "You wouldn't recognize fashion even if it hit you in the face."
"I do recognize fashion from centuries ago," Tolys said dryly.
Feliks waved dismissively. "I've lived too long to always live in the present." He lifted the fabric of his green delia, twisting this and that way to make the żupan swish around his ankles. "I don't think we look enough at the past. Nothing can ever out-fashion whatever we did before the seventeen-hundreds."
Tolys laughed. "Because tights were the height of fashion."
"They sure were." Feliks grinned. He held up a gloved finger, wagging it meticulously. "Don't you dare mock them. Not everyone likes to root around the mud in a potato sack."
Tolys placed his hand on his heart in mock hurt. "Feliks. You wound me, dearest."
Feliks waved his hand, loftily turning up his nose. "Please, Tolys. You look like a hobo even now."
"Fair enough." Tolys pressed his hand against Feliks' cold cheek, smiling as Feliks pursed his lips at the streak of dirt he left behind. He wiped it off fondly, slowly, lingering. "Do come inside."
"Yes, please. Honestly." Feliks followed him, immediately shedding half his attire once the sun was safely shut out.
The house, no longer a hut, was much larger on the inside than it was from the outside, enlargement spells giving Tolys all the space he needed. He placed his basket on the table near the brass cauldron, empty for now, but warmed from the fire, and picked out some of the mushrooms to simmer in a little water on a low heat for the remainder of the day
Feliks stood in front of the mirror (aluminium-coated; none of this silver nonsense that made the nineteenth century rather unbearable), having to stoop left a little to actually see himself as drapes covered most of it, and fixed his hair. He smoothed his hands against his cheeks, critically checking if there was any sign of ageing. He had aged little since his turning, perhaps a couple of years physically in the span of a millennium. His canines shone in the candlelight as he picked at them carefully.
"Were you waiting long?" Tolys asked as he had the tea kettle, probably the most technologically advanced item in his house, boil water, searching the cupboards for his tea box; he always managed to displace it somehow.
Feliks' eyes flicked to Tolys in the reflection. "No. I know you. Strut through the mud till noon; home before sundown."
Tolys smiled, glancing behind him as he reached up to get the tea, bumping his head against the cupboard door as he was distracted by Feliks, who had decided to loosen the knot of his shawl, freeing his neck.
"You're such a hermit, Tolys," Feliks said, amused. "I'm the vampire. Necks should turn me on."
Tolys sputtered, quickly busying himself with filling a teapot and sliding the tea box across the table for Feliks to choose. Not that Feliks particularly tasted anything anymore beside blood, but it was the thought that counted.
Letting Feliks fuss over putting the tea bag (a black ginger-lemon; Tolys' favourite) in, Tolys pottered around in search for a pair of cups. Feliks was given an old ceramic one decorated with gaudy flowers that has ended up on the mantelpiece while Tolys settled for a golden-rimmed cup, worryingly cracked, that he dug up from his ingredients cabinet.
Feliks patted down his clothes as Tolys poured the tea, finding a small vial of blood and uncapping it. It coloured his tea an opaque auburn as Feliks stirred it absently. The blood had been infused with a spell and a drop of jasmine extract, helping Feliks' body store energy instead of expending it immediately, one of a vampire's fatal flaws. Tolys had perfected it himself as to quell Feliks insatiable thirst. Just a vial every other day did the trick.
The old wood of the chair croaked as Feliks reclined, the warm light of the candles painting shadows on his features—features sharpened and softened in the unnatural beauty of the undead, worked to extremes to hide—to convince.
Tolys smiled as Feliks raised a rather unimpressed eyebrow. "Have I said you looked wonderful today?"
"No. I'm rather insulted, really. Where has chivalry gone in this day and age?" Feliks said, dramatically, raising his eyes to the ceiling.
"I apologize." Tolys took Feliks' hand and kissed it. He might have felt playful enough to get up and kneel next to Feliks, to put one of the old rings onto his fingers to kiss and pledge his loyalty to, but Feliks must have seen it in his eyes, for he swatted his hand and gave a rather pointed look. So Tolys sighed, also dramatically, and said, stuffing in all the swoon he could muster, "You look absolutely stunning today, my darling. So stunning, in fact, the sun pales in comparison to you, for you are so blinding! Ah, I must lower my gaze!"
"Now, that's rather back-handed," Feliks said, but he wasn't upset. He was, after hundreds of years, quite used to Tolys' nonsense prose. "Being this white, this luminescent, this undead, is an atrocity I'm well aware of."
"I think it's lovely regardless," Tolys said more soberly. "You're lovely. Always was and always will be."
Feliks smiled. "Let me drink my tea so I have enough blood in me to blush." He raised the cup to his lips, then paused, lowering it slightly as he leaned forward. "By the way, for a hobo, you look quite nice. It must be your face or something."
"Just my face?"
Feliks' eyes flicked down. "Your neck is also rather wonderful."
Tolys shook his head and waved his hand to dispel the heat from his cup, cooling it to something more drinkable. Feliks preferred his tea scaldingly hot, enjoying how it warmed his insides in a way close enough to what blood did to him, more so with some blood added, of course.
"I'm sure there's more to your liking. That is, if you wish to explore later," Tolys said slyly, enjoying the way Feliks' pupils dilated and his lips curled into a smile over the rim of his cup.
"Oh, I wish." Feliks finally returned Tolys' attempts at playing footsie, tea soon forgotten in favour of finding a better purpose for the table before finally migrating to the bed in stumbles and pauses and one unfortunate fall broken only by Feliks' reflexes. It was there, on the floor, they began on the many buttons of Feliks' clothes and forgot about any and all other obligations they might have had for the day.
Feliks kissed along Tolys' collarbone, the witch dozed off and breathing softly. He thumbed the freckles that pooled on Tolys' shoulders, drawing his lips across them, down over his chest and scars, smiling as Tolys squirmed and sighed in his sleep.
Obviously, Tolys was beautiful too. Feliks had always thought so since the first moment he, still a much too young human lord, had met the witch at court. He had been with some lesser nobles, looking for all the world like a peasant in dirt-streaked attire, but carrying himself with the confidence of a lord. During dinner, Feliks had invited him to sit next to him and had subsequently fallen very quickly for the strange charisma that Tolys appeared unaware of exuding.
Fifty years and a vampire bite later, they had stumbled into one another during a crusade, which neither really wanted to be a part of, and had subsequently slipped away together to catch up.
Back then, since Feliks had been a young vampire in the relative sense, the sun hadn't bothered him as much—it would be a very quick and painful sunburn—but nowadays it was like being set on fire, so Feliks filled the space of mysterious heir only out by night who made too many charitable donations and eluded all the tabloids.
Tolys had never cared much for fame and fortune, more concerned with earthly matters like faeries and herbology than the worldly affairs of humans, but he nevertheless indulged Feliks whenever he needed a date to some event, dressing in something simple yet eternally stylish in that regard. Although, if Feliks was completely honest with himself, Tolys could show up in his normal wardrobe and still look fashionable in modern day's tastes.
Feliks leaned onto his elbow and brushed Tolys' hair aside, pressing a line of kisses from his temple to his mouth, smiling as Tolys stirred.
"I was thinking," Feliks said before Tolys had even truly opened his eyes, "would you like to come to this charity benefit with me? It's going to be dreadfully boring, so I'd love to have you there to make it less so."
Tolys groaned, fingers gliding along Feliks' arm and settling on Feliks' cheek. "Oh, pest. Wake me up and ask me out in one breath."
"I don't breathe." Feliks rested his chin on Tolys' chest. "I thought you knew."
"You must breathe. Can't speak without air." Tolys stretched and yawned. "When is this benefit?"
"In a month. You always talk about announcing things timely so you can prepare properly, whatever that means. You wear the same suit anyway. Not that I mind; it's a very nice suit. Your only suit. But, I listen to my husband when he asks me things, so here I am, announcing in advance."
"My, that was a lot of air you just breathed." Tolys laughed, a little too lowly and a little too wonderfully for Feliks to ignore, and ran his hand through Feliks' hair. "You know I can't come on the night of a new moon, right? And whatever did I do to deserve such a wonderful husband?"
"I triple checked. Not quite half moon, or whatever you call it." Feliks kissed Tolys. "The stars must have aligned. That's something you believe in."
"It's not a belief, Feliks. But I suppose they did. For once. With you," Tolys said softly.
Feliks snorted, never quite sure how serious Tolys was about astrology. Tolys said everything humans had meddled with should be taken with a pinch of salt, but he also said he had a witch friend somewhere that was, supposedly, the very best at reading one's fortune. Not that Feliks was one to turn up his nose against prophesies anyway, especially not when most of what had been predicted for him by some foolish harlot centuries ago had come true.
Tolys sighed, still tired, even as Feliks nipped at his skin.
"No breathing, no energy spent, young, sprightly…" Tolys trailed off and yawned again.
Feliks licked his lips, slowly kissing his way toward the crook of Tolys' neck. "Well. Blood was spent."
"Later, Feliks." Tolys brushed Feliks' hair behind his ear before trailing his fingers over his cheek, smiling fondly. "Have some if you must, but I'm going to sleep some more. Lot less young. Lot less sprightly."
Feliks kissed the two little marks he'd left early, but refrained from taking more. There was no need if Tolys was going to sleep anyway. Instead, he laid his head back down on Tolys' chest, ear on the heart, letting the peaceful rhythm distract him as he settled in to simply watch the man he loved.
Some historical notes:
żupan and delia - traditional polish/lithuanian attire that used to be worn by the aristocracy from around the 16th-18th centuries.
aluminium-coated mirror - silver-coated mirrors were introduced in the 19th century (before it was tin or brass) and were probably the bane of every vampire; must have been weird, suddenly unable to see your own reflection.