#cursedveil

“What? No I’m-”

Mellon pauses, realizing that he can’t really deny it, can he, considering… that it’s true. Vaska knows that better than anyone. But Mellon is still not sure why Vaska would call him gay like that…

“Well… so are you, you know,” he retorts, crossing his arms. “Really, even if you might fancy girls, you’re probably gayer than I could ever be…”

“Happy Valentine’s day!” Mellon responded eagerly, having been waiting to say it all evening long. He pulled Vaska in for a kiss. “I love you. You’re not working, or going anywhere or anything at all tonight, are you...?”

Mellon had been excited for the holiday to arrive ever since he realized it was February a few days ago, and he made sure to drop several hints about the date he was planning. He hoped they were picked up on; the thought that Vaska might work tonight made him nervous. It would ruin everything.

“I don’t want you to spend time with anybody else tonight,” he explained, parting from Vaska to get the flowers he’d hidden in the bathtub. He’d picked them all himself, a fact he hoped Vaska would notice. He trespassed into many gardens to create such a lovely bouquet.

Mellon doesn’t even need to read to know what this is, considering what day it is and the amount of hearts on the card. He has received... his first ever valentine. He is clearly a little overwhelmed.

“Oh... O-Okay! I mean, yes! I’ll be your valentine!”

What do valentines do...? Other than go on dates? Surely Vaska doesn’t want to go... on a date...? Mellon covers his face with his hand for a moment before huffing, assuring himself that Vaska doesn’t mean it like that. 

“I love you, too,” Malcolm replied, placing his hand on top of Vaska’s and pulling him into a hug. “...more than anything.”

There was nothing else that mattered to Malcolm at all, in fact. He had the club, but that was only a project. Something to kill time and stay out of the way. He would have given it up without a second thought if it meant he could have a life with Vaska.

Malcolm pushed the impossible idea from his mind, trying to avoid spoiling a happy moment for once. He pulled back from the hug to look down at Vaska, cupping his face with one hand.

He quickly adjusted, trying to become a good pillow so that Vaska wouldn’t have to rest his head somewhere else. It was difficult to imagine his shoulder was comfortable, especially with Vaska being bigger than he was.

“You can sleep on me if you want to,” he still offered.

Mellon tried to stay still and quiet, but it was something he did so rarely that he wasn’t sure how. After a moment of fidgeting with his hands in silence, he found himself concentrating on the sound of Vaska’s breathing, steady and slow.

With how often Americans noticed and complimented him on his English accent, Mellon hoped that he never lost it. The cockney, however, had faded a bit. Both with time and with practice. Mellon still considered it an extension of the poor grammar and vocabulary he’d grown up with, even if no one else had implied as much in many years.

"Ah, you like that...?” Mellon asked, finding it a bit amusing.

Americans just thought all English accents sounded posh, he reminded himself. He cleared his throat, preparing to bring cockney back full force. He tilted his head, unsure what he should say.

“...Well, I would’ve sounded more like this if you met me right off the boat over,” he explained in a much thicker accent than usual, “but no one understood a thing I said, ‘cos I used different words on top of it. D’you like the words too?”

Mellon stared at the other man for a moment, eyes wide. Get him? What did Vaska mean, all of a sudden? Why would Vaska get him? Should... should he be running?

After failing to decipher any meaning from Vaska’s expression, Mellon cycled through a list of possibilities in his head and landed on ‘it’s just a joke’. He grinned and played along, crossing his arms over himself and quickly scooting to the far end of the couch.

“Noooo!!!” he shouted at a volume that gave no consideration to the neighbors. “No, Vaska, please!! Don’t get me! It’s not right of you to attack me in my pajamas!”

“‘What the fuck’ I could understand, but handsome...?”

Malcolm couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Handsome’ was never the way he would have described himself at all- now that he was dead less than ever. His gaunt features, colorless skin, the circles around his eyes... he looked more like a zombie than a vampire. No one would ever doubt that he was dead. He knew others saw it too. People stared, sometimes. They found his appearance jarring.

So at first, Malcolm had assumed Vaska just had a thing for creepy guys; it wasn’t uncommon. But while that may have been true, he still meant what he said. It was clear in the way he looked at Malcolm.

Vaska found him not just weirdly sexy, but genuinely handsome. Malcolm couldn’t bring himself to agree, but... he was more happy to hear Vaska say it than he would have expected to be.

“No, I’m just joking... thank you, thank you. You know... I can’t stop looking at you either. Honestly, I can’t work when you’re around. You’ve got the most perfect face, it’s crazy.”

He was quiet then, looking at Vaska. Being looked at right back. He felt something he shouldn’t be feeling, and Vaska felt it too. There was no other reason for a guy to look at his face like that, Malcolm was sure.