#virthree

Murmuration

They'd decided to have Dinner at The Crow tonight. Mendell's special on offer was a stew with lamb, and Bradley doesn't eat lamb. With his other fare not up to Virgil's snuff, they'd offered to instead have Mendell's special eggtoast for breakfast in the morning. Bradley had been adamant to insist on paying for Beatrice's meal, and the compromise since they took their business elsewhere for the evening, supplimenting with Mendell's cooking for breakfast instead.

After dinner, Bradley had taken Beatrice by the hand, hauling her out to the middle of the dance floor, and Virgil watched them from his perch at their table off to the side as they bounced and bobbed, roaring with laughter at missteps taken with drink-clumsy feet.

Jealousy, at least in the romantic sense, was headless. He's never felt it rear for anyone he knew Bradley to have been entangled with. He rather treasures the joy brought out in his Starling. And while it's sweeter getting to be the driving force of his joy, taking a better vantage point can offer him something he may covet even more.

It was his preference even in their youth to be as a fly on the wall to Bradley with his arms around the backs of their fellow cadets-turned-privates, though they weren't so much dancing as jumping around, boisterously shouting along to bawdy lyrics. Until he left to spend the rest of his night with Virgil, observing from afar.

That was the special thing about starlings; in large flocks, they exhibit a behaviour known as murmuration. Their movements may seem erratic; moving in a confusing swarm without rhyme or reason, but it is an instinctual tactic to survive, utilizing strength in number. Bradley deserved to thrive amongst his birds of a feather. Two, or three, counting himself, does not make a flock, though, and Beatrice is no starling. Neither is Virgil, for that matter.

Though Bradley treats her much the same as those comrades he had, most of which, if rumours were to have it, he'd had at some time or another. But not for as long as he carried on with Dumanski. They had amicably parted before that night, and he'd politely declined the invitation out, as Bradley reported. None of them remained to this day, though.

And maybe he's not as heavy-handed with the roughhousing. He also has given to easygoing affection, a cheek kiss here, or a lingering touch there. It's warm, what that brings about in him, and soft instead of the pain described by some.

The song ends, and Bradley dashes over to their table with Beatrice in tow, grabbing for his glass to quench his thirst. He's sweating profusely, and Virgil swallows with a dry throat as he watches a bead roll down beneath his collar, wishing to capture it between his lips. He takes a sip of his wine to hide the fact, and to take his mind from his forbidden desire, like he would normally do. Then his head cocks to the side with the realization that he needn't do so, and repentance for his sin remains unrequired, for the time being.

"Come here," he beckons Bradley with a hand outstretched, and Bradley takes it in his, then follows his direction, bending to deliver him a quick peck on the lips. Virgil lingers, moving to cup the back of Bradley's neck, and kisses down the column of his throat in the path that his sweat took, tasting the salt on his skin.

"We're in public, Dearest," Bradley is inquiring more than admonishing of him.

"Forgive me my boldness, for taking liberties in what I wish the moment I want it," Virgil begs, adding quieter, "whilst I still can."

"You must come dance with us, Mr. Z!" Beatrice beckons, simpering sweetly. "Let's see if you're still as spry as your Starling has proven to be." She nudges Bradley with a shoulder, scrunching her face as she pokes out her tongue between her teeth, reaching over to rest a hand on his bicep.

"My husband is ever the wallflower, Bea," Bradley purports. The music kicks up into a familiar folk dance song with set steps, and Bradley's eye alights with recognition, then angles a brow up with a question. "But I know you must remember this song. You could dance to this in your sleep, Dearest."

"Ah, but it involves clapping, if I recall correctly," Virgil excuses, "and I'm rather ill-equipped for executing that particular move, I'm afraid."

"You have never let that stop you before," Bradley calls him out, the look he aims at Virgil, a wagging finger. "I've seen you work quite effectively around your limits far too often to let you off with that."

"Twisting my arm?" Virgil accuses, joining Bradley's game of back and forth, and with a smirk he can't hide says, "you know I have only the one."

Bradley's mouth hangs open in a cocked grin as he scoffs at Virgil's insistent play of his only card.

"Oh, Please?" Beatrice begs with a false agony in her melodramatic frustration.

"Yeah, he likes that," Bradley remarks to her snidely, and compliments her, "good idea actually." Then he employs the same method, imploring Virgil with a matching energy. "Please will you join the fun, Dearest? We're so very lonely out there without you." He adds a pout for good measure, crumbling Virgil's resolve to ruins.

"Was that so hard to ask nicely, Starling?" Virgil asks with all his smoldering charisma, and Bradley shivers. "Alright, colour me convinced."

Bradley and Beatrice celebrate amongst themselves, and take an arm each, leading him along into the throng of bodies already in motion. Virgil's the one to set them on the right track, effortlessly bringing them into the fold with his surety in the correct movements. The dance is traditionally done with just one partner, but there is room to add a second, and even switch between multiple partners, if they would chose to.

Virgil compromises, substituting the high-to-low claps to the right and left in turn with snaps of his fingers. Bradley and Beatrice compensate for the times they have to take his left hand with grabbing his shoulder or wrist, as well as each other's hands, taking turns on each of his left and right sides as they swap positions, twirling around him in the middle like a midsummer pole, his arms acting as the ribbons.

When the song draws to a close, he draws them in beneath his wingspan, even his left arm extending out without so much as a twitch in protest, and they connect in a triangular huddle of heaving breaths, sharing increasingly stale air. The blood roaring in his ears alive with the sound of life returning to a self he thought he'd lost touch with, if not buried six feet deep within himself. His carefree self.

Saga of the Starling

Beatrice swirls the bottle, looking between the two of them as if deliberating which victim to choose. Then she thrusts it in Virgil's direction, piercing him with her blue eyes as her gaze lands on him.

"What is the story of why you call him 'Starling'?" Her head tilts in Bradley's direction, and an eyebrow lifts towards her hairline.

"Oh, can I take this one?" Bradley asks to Virgil, then to Beatrice as his hand reaches for the bottle.

Virgil shrugs. "If that's allowed," he posits to Beatrice, and she redirects her question and the bottle's destination to Bradley's hand, "have at it."

Once Bradley procures the bottle to symbolize his turn to speak the truth he gives freely in this game, he starts. "Well, some context; my husband had a collection of taxidermied birds. I noticed that when I first saw his childhood bedroom."

"My father's work," Virgil interrupts. "He was a taxidermist before the artform fell out of popular fashion, and his business was foreclosed on."

Beatrice frowns sympathetically. "I'm so sorry that happened," she offers with a pat at the back of Virgil's hand resting on Bradley's. "I know what it's like to lose everything those that came before you worked so hard for."

Virgil offers her nothing but a shrug, a tight smile, and "it's in the past."

Bradley squeezes the hand Virgil's entwined with on his thigh. Beatrice retracts her hand, and Bradley continues with his story. "The place I grew up in would have us ne'er-do-well children do community service. Stuff like manual labor for local industry that Zentra ran on. My favorite was always working with livestock, but I digress."

Virgil can't help the fond smile that appears on his face at a memory, and learning why Bradley knew a certain safe hiding place for dodging the law. "One such assignment was serving as waitstaff at a charity gala in Skyreach for raising funding towards the CRAYNE House," Bradley informs the both of them. "It was really an excuse to parade those of us not fortunate enough to have family in front of 'fruitless' couples with deep pockets, an empty space in their cushioned nests, and a desire for a challenge in the shape of a troubled child.

"It also had the 'unfortunate' side effect of presenting rich perverts who wanted young peices of ass to marry with vulnerable, and impressionable youths." Bradley's tone turns derisive as he speaks, and he rubs at his mouth, scratching his mustache with his thumb like he was going to be sick.

"That sounds vile," Beatrice comments.

"It was, quite," Bradley agrees, "it happened to my roommate. He wasn't physically fit enough for the military, and too fucked up to be taken in by the church. His destiny was to rot in an asylum, but one such rich pervert he caught the attention of swooped in to 'save' him."

Virgil knew of the man Bradley's speaking about. He'd discovered the fact when the shell of his father's abandoned shop, and their hideaway for the spoils of their illicit activity was snapped up by him to make a brothel catering to clientele seeking the company of other men they later went to play at in disguises. After Virgil caught him with Kujata, of all people, that's where he joined Bradley to have his Starling's physical needs seen to by someone more suitable to the job.

"Anyways," Bradley moves along with, "on these outings we would pass by a little antique and oddities shop where I saw the most affronted-looking taxidermied bird on display. I had some money saved up, and I was determined to buy it the next time I had the opportunity. When we were fifteen, and my husband's sixteenth name day was coming up, it had disappeared from the window."

"Oh, no!" Beatrice interjects with, hanging on Bradley's every word, and grabbing his forearm.

"But, it had only been relocated to the back corner in a cabinet! Though I raced inside in a panic, asking the owner if they'd sold it," Bradley continues dramatically. "I didn't have quite enough money to purchase it at the price its tag presented, but with some begging, and the fact that the shop owner had moved it because it was scaring small children, so their parents avoided entering the shop, denying them their business made that bird fated to leave with me."

"Oh, how lucky!" Beatrice celebrates.

"I am," Bradley agrees, squeezing Virgil's hand, and looking him in the eye. Virgil rolls his in response to the sentiment, but a chagrined smirk curls the corners of his mouth. "So it briefly occupied the space beneath my bed, and I had to bargain with the Matrons of the House to allow me to stow it for just one night, then moved it into a place we kept as a home base of sorts. His father's abandoned shop, no less!"

"Which was like returning it to its birthplace, since it was my father's work," Virgil spoils. He was perhaps still a touch sore at not knowing it had been hidden right under his nose for so long before being presented to him as a gift.

"Dearest!" Bradley interjects, protesting to his reveal. "Am I telling this story or are you?"

Virgil shrugs, offering Bradley his "apologies, Starling."

Bradley hums a begrudging acceptance. "Which was something I was ignorant to at the time, but his father showed me the identifying mark: a little metal disc embedded into the wooden base stamped with his initials."

"How serendipitous," Beatrice coos, charmed by Bradley's recounting.

Virgil scoffs a knowing laugh. She doesn't know how Virgil begged his father to gift him that very peice for one of his namedays, though neither did Bradley, for that matter. They didn't know how devastated he was when his father had sold it just a few days shy after promising that he could have it if it didn't sell by then. Nor how his father diminished his feelings by saying if he'd given Virgil every one he wanted to keep, he wouldn't be making any profit, and they wouldn't have space to breathe in their own home. Virgil didn't speak much more than in short, clipped responses to his father for exactly three months, two weeks, and five days.

Virgil hoped Bradley didn't know that after insisting he go off to his room alone to find a place to display it, he'd shed tears in a jumble of emotions he couldn't name. And so that Bradley also didn't see when Virgil's hands flapped wildly to release his pent-up excitement when he'd found the most suitable place of honor. Though Bradley's smile at him was soft, and his eyes had a shine of something Virgil didn't dare examine when he'd returned.

"Let me guess," Beatrice interrupts his reminiscing. "That bird was a starling?"

"It was," Bradley finishes his retelling with lifting Virgil's hand to his mouth, placing a kiss to the back of it. His mustache rasps against Virgil's skin, making him shiver.

Beatrice swoons. "That's absolutely adorable!"

"It was the greatest gift I had ever recieved," he says, and Virgil can't help but cut the sweet touch of the shared memory with something bitter as he releases Bradley's hand. "But it was lost to the fire that claimed my parents."

Again, Beatrice bestows onto Virgil that sympathetic frown, claiming his freed hand. "I know what it is to lose nearly everything to flames. That is why the colour of ribbon I wear around my neck is that shade. It symbolizes the generations of women I felt burnt at the stake the moment my garden went up."

"That's awful," Bradley comforts her with, brushing a tendril of hair back over her shoulder exposed by the slipping neckline of her shift, then rubbing it with a thumb soothingly.