HADRIAN VILLIERS

“THE BODY was found      haloed by flies—& I looked beautiful in their thousands of eyes.             Didn’t I?” - Michael Wasson, A Soliloquy Would Imply That the Stage Is Empty.

OVERVIEW

- If Zuko was evil and had no friends ( y’know like Azula maybeeee lmao)  - Plays the violin but don’t ask him to do that for you because he’s #angsty and broody over it / hasn’t played since Julian’s death because #trauma.  - Thinks everyone around hims scummy but like w/e he won’t tell you that to your face unless you really grind his gears ( has a generally very chill temper until big pressed ) - Looks out for himself first and foremost - Believes power is everything  - Playing model good boy for his daddy and his family to contend for the family chair ( intends to burn it down to the ground once he’s crowned cuz he’s chaotic like that )  - Def was more deranged and unhinged when he was in Verdamme and now he’s full on #reformed because public image matters and I have things to make mine!!!

AN INSIGHT

✶ the application ( tw: drowning / death / implied abuse ) ✶ the pinterest  ✶ the soundtrack 

COMING SOON ( ? ) 

@hadrianvilliers  /  BELVUE ROOFTOP BAR, WEDNESDAY,  30 JUNE 2021  ⬩  9:20PM  ⬩  DAY 17

she watches the sun break over the horizon, a great egg cracked and spilling yolk down onto the sea. the lines of the water trembles under the stress of it, perpetual undulating motion as if each wave is the weak shoulders of a mortal, the same way any body does when weighed down with tonnes of gold. séverine watches this reverse act of kintsugi - halcyon swallowing blue - from the edge of the rooftop, a soft and discordant sound eliciting from her hands, where she turns the underside of her drink against the thin glass of the bar’s barrier.

her hand reaches for hadrian’s arm inconsequentially, the same way a girl puts hers fingers on a comb already woven through with snags of her hair or a shell found under her shadow on the beach: because it’s merely there; because it’s there under the jurisdiction of her existence, and therefore hers, the way all else is. the labyrinthine nature of her mind is sea-swollen with substances parcelled off of saint, the edges of each thought bulging at the middle and brushing together with bloated tenderness. the evening is beautiful and full of the promise of wreckage, and she can’t help but tug at it, curl her fingers around the velvet rope hanging from the ceiling and pull.

“come here.”

hadrian was but a man. 

and he was a weaked willed one with no doubt. there was an intrinsic magnetism about the moons, both saint and severine - the latter a lost potential that he hadn’t fully indulged in back in their days in verdamme. and it was perhaps one lingering regret now that she had blossomed into something intoxicatingly dangerous - like vodka sprinkled with rose petals, a pull that he easily yielded to. simple in mind as ever, he wanted to dip his lips into temptation itself, a desire that was nothing less than carnal. but he knew a woman like her wasn’t so easily caught. she was incomparable to any butterfly, no, she had a mind of mechanisms and the slender limbs of a spider - but he willingly allowed himself to walk within whatever trap was set. his faith in his own identity triumphed anything else, it’s what made him both mad and brilliant - chaos was his companion.  

he obeyed her order.

TEMPTATIONS. V. CONFESSION [x]  hadrian villiers notes disclosed 

It all had been a strain to her patience. Now, being held taunt way over her head, ready to strung the final wretched notes before finally snapping. She hated that type of feeling - and when she truly hated something, it was very hard to conceal, even to her trained mind. It felt like the beginning of the unplanned, and their stay at the Castillo had been peppered with those moments that filled her with displeasure to the brim of her existence. 

Hadrian was the one who found her, as he always did. As if drawn to her aura, he always managed to find Verity when she was craving the thing she knows best. Even though her brain registered his words, she didn’t turn to face him. He was not the target of her anger, he didn’t have to be, nor he should. “How much do you think these books are worth?” Her fingers twist on her sides, teeth chewing on her bottom lip enough to taste copper on her tongue. 

And just like that, she selected a copy at random. Pristine, carefully dusted and placed there - she wondered how many times a month they ask their battalion of servants to dust them over and over. “Fuck Jaya and Amadeo.” Her fingers carefully flicked through the pages, a soft smile on her face. “Now Azkari and the press,” knuckles turned white, she started ripping the pages of the book in her hands. “ Those two I will take care of, personally.” 

“Not much,” only perhaps a million or two, dependent on the edition. Surely they’d only also keep copies for the most part, he hardly would like to believe the Cervantes idiotic enough to lay out their most prized possessions for casual display. “I’m sure you have no problem picking up the bill for that,” he watched as she tore through - a madwoman in her work, admirable. 

He was casually situated in an armchair, having given up for the most part on everything that had happened. If only ‘fuck off’ was enough to keep all the trouble at bay, alas, not today. “What’re you thinking? I’m in awe that Viviana decided to ask them - after all, it’s not like she’s blind to your background.” It was an insult. But why. 

PURGATORIO 

( PLAYING ) EPISODE: ABANDON HOPE

   —TO OUR LORD AND SAVIOR

“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades“ - REVELATIONS 1:17-18

Is there a quantifiable difference between overwhelming desire and need? A discernible line, however narrow, that could definitively separate one from the other? Because right now, Sutton fails to have even the barest grasp of where it might be.

This sudden fury to have him all to herself is unbearable— Not just symbolically, but actually, physically intolerable, like her existence will begin and end with her ability to satisfy herself right now. It’s as though cortisol had been released into her bloodstream in preparation for the showdown she’d attempted to start, and though the cortisol proved unnecessary, she’s cornered into the fight-or-flight instinct of it anyways; And when, in her entire life, has she ever, ever defaulted to the latter of that famed dichotomy?

Her reply comes through gritted teeth, all but a snarl. “Like hell.”

In a rush, she surges forward (to what end, even she wonders) and grabs his shirt with her free hand with enough force that when she lets go there’ll surely be wrinkles leftover in the fabric, abrupt flaws against his perfect façade. Her wine glass is still clutched in a white-knuckle grip in her other hand, the sudden movement having sent amber drops of Eiswein to stain the plush carpet underfoot. And then she kisses him. It’s nearly a bite; Her mouth catches his, she breathes against him, and abruptly breaks away, eyes gleaming with mad fervour.

Hadrian knew - through every shift in feature and expression, the raw desire to indulge in the physical act of domination was a game Sutton could never reject. Despite all the enraged frenzy, he beckoned her further. Eyes glinted with such charm, I dare you. 

And as always, the huntress stalked forward. Her lips betrayed the actions that commit through her body. Hadrian allowed it, almost chuckling against it. Ever the same - the soft lines of her form against his, his body reacted naturally to it, in perfect practice and precision. The desperation and wrath of her lips gnawed away against his. In her honor, he returned the same passion, a fervor that was almost guttural. She tore away as if she were playing the same game of cat and mouse. What a fucking tease. 

“If Hell is where you want to be, all you had to do was ask Sutton,” he brought her wrist closer to his face, downing the rest of the wine against his lips. “Intoxication, hedonism, eroticism - aren’t they all your favorite genres.” The glass was emptied, and in ever the show of bravado, he threw it away from them, where it shattered against the wood of the library. Fragments littered all over the carpet. 

𝗪𝗛𝗢 —  @hadrianvilliers​ 𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘 — the de cervantes’s fence 𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗡 — friday, june 18th

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nazrin utters under her breath, arms laced perplexedly across her chest. She takes in the tall, elegant fence, and the impossibility of scaling it continues to dawn on her further. It being nighttime couldn’t have helped either. “You’re going to break your face or your ass. Or both. Who would you be without either?” 

She’d foolishly accompanied Hadrian to the outskirts of the De Cervantes property, an abettor to his attempted escape. Somehow, even after knowing him for all those years, Nazrin had not believed him to be serious, despite knowing better. 

“I know they might still technically be athletic wear, but these Balenciagas were not made for climbing.”

Hadrian made poor decisions - especially when he was superbly wasted. 

It had gotten into his mind that it would be a brilliant idea to attempt a midnight escape. And the only person who seemed fucked enough in the mind to join him was Nazrin. He snorted at the snide comments she had, ever so optimistic - ever the same. “Nothing a little bit of plastic surgery can’t fix,” he joked, his words slurred as he slung one leg around the pole as his hands attempted to grip upward on the rungs. 

   ⏤   ACT I, SCENE I.             ENTER DANTE AND HADRIAN, IN THE GALLERY.

There is no greater sight than beauty engulfed in beauty. The helpless reaction that overwhelms the body is exquisite in its ferocity; pupils greedily blown, a futile attempt to gorge on every detail while maintaining a safe distance from the trap of allurement; the sprit of ear-stuffed sailors bewaring the fatality of magnetism dense in the air. And yet, closer he goes - Dante has never been one to back off from a dare, much less one promising oblivion. 

Portraits proudly bejewel the walls, inviting wanderlust-sore souls into Wonderland through the portal of an enamored gaze - peek inside the Looking Glass, into hidden lands that live between the domain of reality and the Devil’s hedonistic kingdom; please, jump head first into his stack of playing cards, shuffled cleverly between universes, and get stuck in the molasses of your own pleasure. Its Queen of Hearts looks, but doesn’t touch - rare for those rapacious hands to still in their desire, but even Dante can take a knee in respect when faced with such majesty. A gaze can weigh more than a touch, anyway, if you angle it right.

He can feel Hadrian’s on his neck, the gravity of his looking imitating the hands that used to sit on his skin like a necklace of pearls does now, each dose of pressure mapping an ambitious trail of pleasure points.

Dante wonders, when he turns, what those eyes would look like in their consumption; would they be blown black from beholding the mesmeric pageant of beauty within beauty within beauty (a matryoshka doll: this ornate shadowbox of a room hiding the gilded frames of Giorgione hiding Dante), or black from the Devil’s seed spilling excess in that lithe frame, oily and hot against the lake of ice. 

Does Hadrian have the will to stuff his ears and turn away? Dante can sing such a pretty song.

“Shall I await a greeting from that tenacious assistant of yours, or is there a string I can pull to activate the chainsaw you call a voice box? One hiding in your ass, perhaps? I have a knack for finding hidden treasures in there.”

i,      @hadrianvilliers.

There were no words to describe him. In any sanctified court, it was no doubt that he was nothing less than a heathen. In all defiance and masochistic revelry, Dante was quite something else, so very other. 

He stood like a sculpture of his very own making. Perhaps that was what had caught Hadrian’s glance - a kind of walking art that was mesmerizing as it was odd, nothing quite explainable. Good or bad, maybe a little bit of both. His gaze had almost entranced his own eyes - unwavering where his mind began to drift off into another realm of thought. He hadn’t realized he hadn’t budged from his position, watching as if he had true interest in the subject. 

It is when his voice cuts through that Hadrian awakes from whatever spell had befallen him. His jaw tightens once more, posture refined as he looked toward the other. Always offering himself to the chaos, to all the madness with the sinful delight of mischief and undeniable wayward terror. All the same, whisperings of eroticism coaxed again, as if they had stepped foot once more in Verdamme. 

“I’m afraid the doors to my ass are shut today,” he almost laughed. Dante hadn’t changed - ever so exquisite in his poetic rambles of doing the dirtiest of things. Filth recognized filth. 

“But hello to you too. It’s been awhile hasn’t it.” A courtesy response, a practiced speech that was said ever so often on repeat. As if he were a broken doll of his very own. “While my treasures can not be touched, there have always been others to take from, wasn’t there one in particular that you’d always wanted a key to.” The name doesn’t dare fall from his lips. But it’s in Hadrian’s eyes that he knew who exactly. 

“Oh, but I thought you enjoyed it.”

August scores another point, and they are tied. There is a certain sort of prodding in his tone, an accusation for delighting in the macabre. But August knew what Hadrian Villiers was beneath his blade of apathy. He was scared and August could not blame him. He would be too if [REDACTED].

The sweat on his hands make the racket slip, and suddenly August is no longer worried about winning. He lets the other score one more point before setting his weapon against the nape of his neck. His shirt clings to his form and outlines the couture of his body, and he cannot help but notice Hadrian’s clothing does the same.

“Have you met with Jasmine? I remember how close you two were in the past.I hope she isn’t suffering too much, I can’t imagine that she’s handing Zahira’s accusations well.”

Hadrian wins but there is an emptiness to it. He mimics August in form, doing the same as other, he searches for water - downing it in gulps as he chugs the liquid. It’s refreshing against the sun that shines from above. The heat had gotten to his cheeks and the sweat clung to his body - the feeling ever so disgusting. But his form remains in top shape - fine tuned and built with hours at the gym. 

“I did,” he chuckles. “She’s afraid, not much has changed for her. Doesn’t seem like it has for the rest either,” he muttered. He looks at August, knowing that he has little choice but to remain on amicable grounds. Their lives were tied to a joint stake whether he liked it or not. 

“Who would’ve thought we’d be here in five years,” Hadrian murmurs, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and wrist. “Do you think this is just the beginning to another one of those fucked up games at Verdamme?” 

No, Hadrian wouldn’t ever see anything he’d done as wrong. It was all just a means to an end with him, wasn’t it? Jasmine couldn’t say she blamed him for it any more than she hated to hear it. Not out of compassion for him—somehow, she managed to feel both nothing and everything all at once but she could not summon compassion for Hadrian any more than she managed to feel it for anyone else at this point.

His words would have hurt her if she allowed them to have any weight. He didn’t tell her anything that she hadn’t heard before, nothing that she alone hadn’t thought about herself. Instead of pain, it left behind a hollow, aching sort of feeling in her stomach. Pitiful was one word for it, but even Jasmine hadn’t ever used a word so base as that against herself. That, if anything, was the one word that echoed in her ears.

Jasmine snorted, a sound too much unlike her and too unladylike. Silently, she wondered if Hadrian did it on purpose, the goading and the mocking and the vicious cruelty. She would have asked if she ever thought she’d get anything out of him other than his own special type of emotional brutality.

It was the only thing she could do to hide the way her chest caved in. Was it a threat, an underhanded dig? It was almost tempting to think about the idea of her eyes shutting tonight and never opening again, but Hadrian had said Julian’s name and that was enough to instill a deep fear in her heart. “And who’s going to take me out?” she asked, her teeth on edge, for once a note of hardness inching through. “You? What, have you come to kill me?“ She rolled her eyes. “You’re far too dramatic for your own good, Hadrian.”

She was so gentle and fragile, perhaps that was all the more fun in watching her break - ruined damaged people like him were evolved. Weren’t they? In the fucked up world of the cruel and brutish animals, one had to thicken and harden their skin, bare their teeth and roar. It’d be no use to be so kind and good - not when evil ran through the world spinning about in reckless joy. 

“Pft, please Jasmine.” Hadrian remains unchanged - the tone his voice flat as if he were bored by the little accusation that fell from her lips, “if I wanted you dead, I could’ve snapped your neck already.” He smiled, almost cruelly. 

“But I’m not him. I’ve never claimed myself to be a God. But I suppose I picked up something from theater and performances.” He eyed her once more, wondering if she was still quivering from all the accusations that had been made that evening. They were all watching her with daggers in their eyes - if anyone was worth sacrificing, she would be the one. The easiest prey to capture and throw into the fire. If only there were to be mercy. 

He cocks his head, considering. Eyeing Hadrian as if he’s sizing him up — for sport or dissection, he hasn’t quite made his mind up yet. Hadrian was always ever so determined to play the wildcard, the element of unadulterated chaos in an already volatile arena.  “You seemed to be rather enjoying yourself.”  The purse of his lips is neither smirk nor smile, just barely somewhere in between, if surgical curiosity could pass for humour.  “Isn’t this the kind of thing you live for? Macabre displays of violence and spectacle. The thrill of watching everyone scramble for some semblance of rationality when there’s none to be found.”  Hadrian, old friend. Your greeting looks like a punch waiting to be thrown. Would you do it, if he dared you to?

Hector lets out a low, musical laugh. Abrupt as blunt force head trauma, this one.  “More’s the pity. Even back then, that was the singular talent you used to pride yourself on.”  They’d devoted many a boundless night to such reckless adventures, pure hedonism augmented by a truly impressive panoply of hallucinogenics and amphetamines.  “A bitch that very much wants to stay alive. Don’t you know how these stories go? Be careful what you eat, lest you want to wind up choking on your own tongue.”  He blows out a plume of smoke as if to illustrate his point of exactly what Hadrian wouldn’t be capable of doing in the event of an untimely poisoning. Silence blankets them with an elusive tension, a sense of dissonance that Hector isn’t willing to unravel just yet.

The cigarette pinched between his fingers is burning down to embers. He flicks at it idly, and turns to look Hadrian dead-centre. No persiflage or banter concealing the truth slicing through the underbelly of his words:  “Quite convenient isn’t it, that this reunion is happening now, during the same solstice when he died.”

Food was food, Hadrian had eaten far more disgusting things. He’d never forget the scene that had been made in the kitchen when he had been given scraps fed on the ground as if he were a fucking mutt. This, this was nothing comparable. “I eat in order to satiate hunger,” he nearly snarled. What did the likes of Hector know. If only the prick would piss off but he always managed to wiggle whenever the time was right. “I don’t live for it, there are bigger grander things to live for - tonight was just a meal and a show tied together. Whoever presented it wanted an audience and hence, that was what we all were.” The same indifference coated each syllable, rolling off his tongue. 

“What hasn’t killed me just means they’d need to try harder,” Hadrian said with almost egotistical snide. He had believed himself ascended, superior in so many ways that he was untouchable. But even angels fell themselves. Perhaps he’d get his reckoning but not this evening. Not just yet. He remained unflinching as Hector made a show of his smoke. Fucking stupid asshole, as always - god all rationale aside, Hadrian would’ve been glad to shove a bloody fist to his face. “Were you too scared to? Afraid of a little death? I thought you’d have been used to choking by now...” he trailed off, nearly snickering. 

Hadrian volleys, pushing Nikhil to be the first of them to say something real. Five years, their conversations — if the emails they occasionally exchanged could even be called that — had been exercises in how little of import two people could to say to each other. Nikhil had accounted for the possibility that not even this little murder mystery dinner on steroids would change that. Hadrian’s got putting distance between them down to an art. Nikhil had a half a mind to shove him up against the wall, pin him there with the rest of the masterpieces, just to get a reaction out of him, bring back the wildcard he so vividly remembers. 

But Hadrian still hasn’t let go of his hand, so Nikhil doesn’t push quite so hard. Instead, he just takes a small step further into Hadrian’s space. “Do I?” He asks, flatly as he can, but watches Hadrian’s expression as intently and analytically as he would the art that surrounds them. He has five years worth of things to say. He can’t know what good it would to do voice any of them. “Still think you can read me?” He asks instead, something just shy of wry in his voice.

“I came to see the gallery. The piece in the drawing room was new, but the collection here is just as I remembered.” He pauses a moment, considering, then drops Hadrian’s hand. “Present company excluded, perhaps.” Prove me wrong.

Hadrian didn’t realize he had been holding his breath. Things hadn’t changed, not by much. The tension, the sparks that cracked through the air couldn’t be heard. But he could feel it run through his nerves. He was reminded of everything from Verdamme just at a glance of the other. Still think you can read me. There it was, the melodious temptation of sin itself. 

“Depends, if you’d allow it,” Hadrian remarks, almost coy. Nikhil always had a way with pushing and pulling, teasing in all methods of game. A master of strategy even in the bedroom, it was always a thrilling surprise to say the very least. He had certainly left a mark upon Hadrian that had been incomparable to the past five years that had flown by. 

It warranted a roll of the eyes before, with energy akin to a young drug lord, Silas pulls a pipe from the inside pocket of his light windbreaker, the inner lining a flash of color and fine prints, a contrast to break up the plain black exterior. There was surely a metaphor there somewhere, something lost on two men too rich for their own good, set apart in a celebration of the dead and the debauchery of the living. Of course they find themselves in this scenario, if not them, then who? “If you’re looking for something laced we could crush a bar of Xanax in there but I wouldn’t expect to do much else tonight. Maybe one drink to get a really good buzz going, any more than that and you might not wake up tomorrow.” He says it casually, no lilt to his voice to insinuate that he’s joking or particularly cares whether he kills Hadrian tonight or not. 

That’s the last thing they need, night one killing off yet another member of their fucked up little group of sociopaths. There’s somehow a feeling of inevitability there.

He tosses Hadrian the bag of weed and says, “Pull that apart.” Before patting down his pants to find the lighter and bag of filters, his entire being more or less situated for this exact situation, the sort of countenance that a legal pat down would have a field day with — if the rich had any laws to follow, that is. Money is power and power is God, or something to that effect. He puts down the paraphernalia, watching Hadrian for a long moment, all dark iris’ and straight posture, wide shoulders. Attractive man, absolutely fucking unbearable to deal with. It seemed to be the one thing the group all had in common besides money. He eyes him a moment longer, equal parts thoughtful and disinterested, voice not thoughtful but present, almost telling more than asking when he says, “It doesn’t look the same, does it?”

Hadrian’s eyes glazed over with much enthusiasm. Silas always knew what to do, so prepared in the ways of hedonistic abandon. Nothing had changed between the pair and well - it was almost like a relief. If he had lived the life of blue blood privilege doused with honor and respect like the rest of the pack, perhaps he would’ve been different in the legitimate way. Alas, that hadn’t been written in his fate and thus he was left to suffer the consequences of his father’s sins. “Maybe some point, not feeling it just yet...” Hadrian mumbled as he thought of all the concoctions that would be available. He could truly get his mind out of his body should he wished. The emptiness of feeling nothing and everything was beautiful - it closed a void from within. “Maybe I’d be freed if I didn’t wake,” he snorted. “Julian wouldn’t stand it” Death was too soon for the likes of him, he was biding his time for more. He hungered for more. 

He was already living in Hell, he couldn’t imagine descending further. Well, perhaps he could. Hadrian didn’t fear much given that he had seemingly conquered an empire - one that was steadily at the end of a game that was. He’d soon topple his namesake all for once. And then he’d gladly drown for all the devils he had sworn himself to. 

Hadrian did as he was told - eager and excitedly too. He eyed the contents that Silas had brought with glee, his teeth flashing in the darkness. “You went to town,” he wasn’t surprised by the very least, he’d never cease to be impressed at the sheer volume that he could magically conjure. He was the fairy godfather of fucking drugs galore.