⚜ n e o c l a s s i c a l

• duncan marco vale • 24 • florentine • poet • "there’s hymns in the crook of his neck, sundust ignites his gilt skin. they say he is wrought from harp string and sun’s ray, but i know better."

[seascare]

[hdearlove-blog]

a house divided || henry and duncan

[duncanmarcovale]

( lord henry dearlove. )

Henry’s resolve sagged as Duncan turned that doleful gaze on him, a gaze that would have meant please tell me to stay, had they not just exchanged the most bitter of words. He nodded curtly, feeling his hand throb painfully. He knew now would be the moment to apologize– please Duncan don’t leave me I’ve tried so hard and I’m so sorry nothing turned out like we planned but can’t I have you just a second longer, can’t I hold you? but the things they had said had created a chasm between them. Henry wondered if it was too wide to be breached. 

“Thank you,” he said, his voice unnaturally cold, and turned away, his eyes passing over the letter on the desk. He was filled with a bitter self-loathing that made his stomach churn– why couldn’t he say the words Duncan wanted to hear?– and his head was in a painful, angry fog, his desperation more potent than any drug he’d had before. He wanted a drink. He wanted a drink and he wanted Duncan but the way things were before…

He turned to the door suddenly, his gaze more clear, somehow, his voice softer as he asked, brow furrowed, “Where will you go–?” 

He was already partway down the hallway when Henry’s voice - Henry’s voice soft and god forbid, sad - reached his ears. Where will you go? Duncan hadn’t exactly thought that far yet, only that he wanted to get out of the house as quickly as he could. Usually after these fights he would sulk back to his own room with thunder in his eyes, or to Emma needing comfort, but he had never before had such a desperate need to leave Mont Blanc completely. 

There was only one other place in England he felt completely welcome, and even then he did not know if his welcome there extended as far as this - as far as harbouring the heartbroken. “To Pe- to Lord Danceny’s, I think.” He corrected his familiarity for Henry’s ears though as soon as he had he wished that he hadn’t.

Duncan swallowed hard and made no attempt to hide the crack of hurt in his voice from where he had been stayed, mid-step in the hall. “Dare I say it, there may be some men in this town that you’ve dragged me to who value me for me than the place I have in their beds.” He called back bluntly yet unobtrusively over his shoulder; that way there was no need to disguise the crack of sadness in the beautiful, angry mask he so proudly donned for fights like these only to shed it in exchange for tears as soon as he escaped Henry’s gaze.  

[hdearlove-blog]

a house divided || henry and duncan

[duncanmarcovale]

( lord henry dearlove. )

Henry’s eyes widened as Duncan spat out a tirade of insults– the worst, the one that stopped his heart, being the vindictive cripple. Duncan knew, he had to have known, that that would destroy Henry most– that those scars had been shown in complete confidence, that it was an unspoken rule never to use the thing Henry was most insecure about–

But hadn’t Henry done the same?

He stood mutely as Duncan took his hand, pain still coursing through his knuckles and wrist and up his arm. He wouldn’t look Duncan in the eye, and when Duncan dropped his hand and retreated, Henry still didn’t glance up. Whatever fight had been left inside him had been drained in that one instant and replaced with the bitterest self-loathing, a feeling so deeply rooted he couldn’t have described it if Duncan asked. But he hadn’t, and didn’t. 

“You little monster,” he said, cradling his broken hand. If he couldn’t fix things, at least he could make it easier for Duncan to leave. “God, you’re vile. You’re poisonous, dear, a thin veneer of concern over a stinking pit of – what was that word you liked… selfishness?“ Henry raised his eyebrows. "Oh, does that sting a little? Hit at some uncomfortable truths– perhaps none of your motives are quite so pure as you insist?” 

There was blood slowly staining his cuff, and Henry folded his arms so Duncan might not see it. “Do not pretend to care, Duncan, you are not much of an actor,” he said, voice low. But it was a half-hearted insult, his mind still reeling with the force of Duncan’s words. Cripple. “Go. I don’t give a damn where you end up.” His words were punctuated with the force of someone trying to make himself believe something he didn’t. 

Duncan felt himself physically flinch at the new tirade of insults that fell, not undeservingly, from Henry’s lips. He cursed himself for letting that weakness show in his demeanour. Monster, vile, poisonous, selfish - he didn’t think he had ever been called any of those things, but then again, he had never in the past resorted to such low means of argument. When had he become this person that he wasn’t? 

“I guess that is the product of too much time with you, perhaps.” Duncan replied, knowing he couldn’t force out any more words without his voice cracking and betraying his hurt. Henry was right that his accusations stung, but they stung more than a little. He had let his anger and bitterness escape him against the one person who was supposed to be on his team in this country that was still so strange to him, the man he loved, the man he had followed here on a whim that now felt more naive than anything. 

“Don’t pretend to know how I feel.” Duncan frowned, picking his way through the debris towards the door with his heart feeling as if were going to beat out of his chest - and not in the good way. “You may presume that your treating me as you are has driven me not to care about you, but I regret to inform you that it hasn’t.” He knew Henry well enough to know that the strain in his voice was the same as the strain in his when he had used possibly Henry’s most sensitive, private insecurity as a petty insult. 

The Italian hovered in the doorway for a moment and ran a hand anxiously through his hair. The words that broke the vastly awkward silence that had been created by their conflict were quiet, unsure, and shy as if they had not known each other years and seen each other so intimately as they had. “I’ll tell Atticus to come up here and take a look at that hand on my way out.”

[ghostlywriterr]

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

I think of you with the most excruciating tenderness.

Vladimir Nabokov, from Letters to Véra tr. by Olga Voronina & Brian Boyd (via soracities)

[hdearlove-blog]

a house divided || henry and duncan

[duncanmarcovale]

( lord henry dearlove. )

Henry tried to conjure up anger or spite inside himself and found his resevoire severely lacking; he had exercised what he’d had to say and now he was tired, longing for the days when Duncan would press his body against Henry’s while they slept, subconsciously, only for a little more closeness. There was still a flicker of annoyance that swept through him at the mention of his father– Lydia wasn’t enough, so now Duncan had to rail against every member of the Dearlove clan?

“You’ll kindly leave my father out of this,” Henry said, “just as you will Lydia– she doesn’t know a thing, poor girl, she’s been picked out of school and sent to a strange place–” He cut himself off, glaring viciously. “If you have issues with me, Duncan, kindly direct them to me and me only.” 

That little rant done, he sagged again, slumping in his shoulders and breathing a heavy sigh. “I don’t know what to do,” he said quietly, and stared at Duncan with doleful eyes. “I don’t know what I shall do about Lydia, about you, about my debts– damn it, I am a man, I should know–” He turned and savagely punched the wall, which gave way beneath his hand, though he felt something crack in his knuckles and gave an audible cry of pain. 

“Poor girl.” Duncan said, bitterness dripping from his voice. “She has to marry you.” An ironic insult, Duncan knew, since he thought there might be very little he wouldn’t do to be in her position. “I pity her, for what will happen to her as the novelty of your union wears off and you grow tired of her. She will be the scorned wife of a cripple who can’t keep to his own bed.” There was remorse for his words as soon as they passed his lips, he did not take naturally to cruelty and he knew he was crossing line after line in terms of how far he was willing to go.

Out of instinct, Duncan took a step towards his lover as his frustrations were directed into the wall. “Henry!” His voice was wrought with worry; he too had heard the unmistakeable crack from Henry’s hand. “God, let me see.” Clearly, he was not thinking as he gently took the young lord’s hand in his own as if they were not in midst of one of their infamous rows. Something was clearly wrong with it, but as he inspected Henry’s hand in the role of a concerned lover, his sense returned to him in the form of a realisation that that was not who he had been moments ago. 

“You should go and show that to Atticus.” Duncan said, his tone clipped and devoid of all the concern it had held before. "Looks like you’ve gone and made a mess of it.” His voice was quiet, unsure, frightened even. “I should go too, before I drive you to more madness.” Duncan surveyed the destruction that they had created between them, like some twisted, ugly sculpture of thrown books, shredded paper and a gaping hole in the wall. The idea of being under this roof any longer made his stomach lurched, and he realised, with a jolt, that he really had nowhere else to go... unless he took advantage of Peter Danceny’s kindness towards him, of course, not that his already broken pride was all too keen on that idea. 

[quotemadness]

I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.

Daphne du Maurier (via quotemadness)

[duncanmarcovale]

( mr peter danceny. )

He led the young man across a stone path, winding around freshly groomed shrubs and polished statues. The grounds were always held in pristine regard; little did others know that Peter put in his own time, not leaving every effort to groundskeepers. Before vaulting doors, Peter turned to him. He lifted a finger and placed it delicately beneath Duncan’s chin. “No one should ever disappoint you,” he spoke firmly, “you are a bell'animo.” Tapping his chin once before the conversation’s release, Peter pushed through intricately carved ebony wood.

The manor was far from the brightest lit estate. Where others held brightly placed colors and gleaming chandeliers, Peter preferred the deeper of the color spectrum. From maroons, forest-like greens, darklit blues and greyscale, there was no sense of daylight where curtains were drawn shut, thus trapping all shadows within. Yet it held a somnolent elegance in its towering structures. The furnishings were dark oak but sleek at their finish. The only light– save for low-lit ceiling fixtures and candles– came from his next action. Peter flashed the young man the rarest of smiles, revealing white teeth accompanied by bright eyes. “That, Mr. Vale, is dolce per la cena.”

A meow echoed throughout many corridors, its volume rising until a small feline figure appeared padding along the upstairs railing and its bannister. She swept between Peter’s legs once leaping down leading steps, and continued her persistence with noisy deliberation until the lord scooped her up. Her purrs were voluminous as Peter scratched beneath her chin. Continuing their journey toward the kitchen he reclaimed the reason an invitation had been offered. “Tell me what Dearlove has done.” He released Circe who promptly chose Duncan as her next prey. “We can release that lioness upon him.” But the real predator was Peter Danceny, who had already been deliberating plans within his head.

Duncan’s mouth was slightly parted in awe of Wightwick and it’s grounds. The perfectly groomed hedges and the classical statues casting dutiful watch over the estate appealed to his eye immensely. He should very much like to draw the scene, Duncan thought, perhaps it might provide some differentiation from the subject of the man walking beside him who he had been so fixated on drawing since their first meeting. He lifted his head at Peter’s touch and anchored himself with the steady gaze of his ice-blue eyes. A bashful smile appeared on his face, and he could feel his cheeks growing pink Peter’s rather flattering words. “Ci vuole uno di conoscere uno.” 

Duncan found solace in Peter’s use of his mother tongue, and grinned at the sound of it off his tongue. “I didn’t know you spoke Italian.” He grinned, as the heavy doors shut behind him as if to shut out all the problems that the world currently held for him. 

The interiors of Wightwick were far from what he was used to. Where Mont Blanc was light and white and bright, the home of the Danceny siblings was darker, more elegant, the walls lined with more books than even Duncan would know what to do with - sure, he itched to open the curtains and let the light pour in, but he was content with the dimness for now. A bright smile broke out across his features, a beacon of light in an otherwise darkened room, at the suggestion that perhaps Peter wasn’t quite as serious as the whispers made him out to be. “That sounds like a vastly excellent idea.” He was cut off from saying anything further by a persistent meow that was becoming more and more familiar. The made a good pair, Duncan thought, as Peter lifted Circe into his arms to scratch under her chin - the man who seemed more at home among the shadows, and his little feline shadow who so revelled into his company. 

Duncan bent down to pet the cat, using the excuse to hide the smile dropping from his face from Peter. “We fought, nothing more.” He dismissed, though his voice cracked and gave him away. Even Circe’s loud purring wasn’t enough to hide that. “It’s nothing to concern yourself with, I promise. We will likely be back to normal before long, that’s always the way it goes anyway. I will be forgiven and we will stow our insults away until it is time to use them again.” Little was to be said for the scars left on Duncan’s heart by Henry’s words, or the subject of his own forgiveness, but Duncan knew he could not speak of them without more tears being shed. “The use of your little lioness may be premature, I’m afraid.” He could feel his perhaps undeserved loyalty to Henry becoming a problem, and yet he did not know how to be any different after so long. 

[hdearlove-blog]

a house divided || henry and duncan

[duncanmarcovale]

( lord henry dearlove. )

Henry was aware that there was some sort of finitude in what he’d said. He was marrying Lydia; it was inevitable. He and Duncan would be reduced to whatever they could manage between Henry’s new life and wherever Duncan would go– more likely than not, they would be finished. Something deep inside him fell and shattered. Henry stared at Duncan with wide eyes, caught between the urge to fire back an equally hostile comment and the urge to weep. He teetered on the threshold of those sentiments, the wreckage of the office surrounding them, and said bitterly,

“My people, Duncan? Yes, I come from a line of great repute. But I haven’t seen you get in bed with anyone who didn’t! Let us talk Allessi, let us talk any number of the rich Italians you fondled for a taste of luxury. I cannot help it, my darling, if you throw yourself in bed with those who cannot love you to the fullness that you feel you deserve–”

His voice was mounting in pitch, hysterical, but then dropped off as he murmured, vaguely, brokenly, eyes cast to the floor, “I do love you, Duncan. To the extent that I could die from the pain of it.” His words were hard but there was an edge of desperation to them, and even in their softness they seemed to fill the space around the pair. “Go find another man of means to seduce, Duncan, because I do not know what I have left to offer you.” 

Between the shards of their conflict there was a definite moment between them in reaction to the haunting word ‘fianceè’ reverberating in the space around them. It occurred to Duncan that in their need to place the blame on each other they had forgotten to have sympathy for each other’s situation, but he was in too deep and Henry’s next volley of accusations smashed the thought of offering him anything but contempt in return.

“Some of us don’t have piles of their father’s money with which to fund their poetry, Henry.” Duncan fought to keep his voice from cracking. “I am not proud of what I did with Allessi, and those who came before him, you know that! At the time it seemed the least degrading way, believe it or not, to get myself where I needed to go!” Duncan’s pride had been bruised and shredded and completely done away with since these fights had become commonplace, and yet hearing his own actions spat at him never failed to make him want to scream and cry until he had no voice left to do either. 

“You sure have a peculiar way of showing it.” Duncan cursed under his breath, wishing they could be transported back to those sun-filled mornings in Greece where they had been still getting acquainted with each other’s bodies and minds and falling in love like a stone off a cliff. Instead they were here, ripping each other to shreds as their happiness disintegrated around them. “I did not seduce you for your means, if anyone did the seducing it was you with your talk of travels and poetry and things that I had never even imagined.” Bitterness spurned his words and the volume of his voice crested as anger turned into desperation. “I don’t want your fucking money, Henry! It was never about that! I want you! That’s all I’ve ever wanted, and I can’t have even that because she is taking from me the one thing I don’t know how to live without!”

[duncanmarcovale]

( miss vivienne danceny. )

Vivienne was quite in a mood for some solitude from everyone, her brother excluded – for the most of the time. It was a lovely, although a little cloudy, morning for a ride and she saddled her most trusted steed, and made her way towards the woods, where she liked to sit in a clearing and read, preferring the outdoors rather then succumbing to melancholy indoors.

She was halfway though the book when she heard a horse approaching and she glanced to see who it was intruding her solitude.

“Splendid weather, is it not?”

Duncan was spending an extended amount of time away from Mont Blanc Manor in his efforts to battle his thoughts and avoid Henry at the same time. As usual, he carried his notebook and a pencil with him should inspiration strike him during his wanderings, and he was deep within his own thoughts when he heard the quiet snickering of a horse. 

Looking up, he spotted a young woman sitting, reading in solitude while the horse in question stood guard nearby. Vivienne Danceny - Duncan knew of her, as it would happen had spent a lot of time recently with her brother, and yet he had never actually made her acquaintance. 

“Si, it is certainly a welcome change, my lady. Almost as if we are being rewarded for braving the chill of this past winter.” He replied, halting his wanderings to smile brightly in her direction.

[duncanmarcovale]

( miss imogen hastings. )

“Ah, I am supremely lucky, then, to recieve this priviledge, ” she smiled, easily joking along with him. The shock and startle of their impact had faded into a happy warmth when she recognized Duncan, the book in his hands proving to her that she was not the only one to wander while distracted. “I am quite alright - not a single scratch.” She laughed. “You and I both, I suppose. What book is that that kept you so enthralled?”

“I’m glad to hear it. I would hardly be able to live with myself should my absent-mindedness have caused you harm.” He smiled, placing his thumb onto the page of his book to mark it and closing the cover over it to show Imogen. “L'Iliade. Nothing new, I’m afraid.” Duncan didn’t think he would ever grow tired of the timeless epic and the heroic actions of Achilles. He had long lost count of the amount of times he had read it, but the dog-eared pages and battered cover spoke volumes for themselves. “E tu? Working on something important, I hope?”

[hdearlove-blog]

a house divided || henry and duncan

[duncanmarcovale]

( lord henry dearlove. )

Henry was in the process of shredding some letters– after all, that stupid letter was what had gotten him here in the first place (and for a moment he didn’t know if he was thinking of the letter about Lydia or Asia’s letter all those years ago). His nails dug into his palms hard enough to bruise as he ripped the pages apart wildly, the floor scattered with scraps of white on which a lilting black script traveled. He half-wondered if he was shredding poems and decided he didn’t care– what use was art in a world where money ruled? 

“Oh, you’re not happy?” Henry said, eyes wide. “Oh, my goodness, how sorry I am! How I ought to be falling over myself ensuring your happiness at all times!” His sarcasm was perforated by the light shake in his voice, the hysterical high pitch it climbed as he went on. “That is really only my duty, isn’t it, Duncan– to make sure you are happy, to pamper you, to adore you! Not a thought given to any of my obligations– to my family, which you happily slander once they come in the way of the immediate gratification of your desire; to my house and belongings… You know nothing of consequences.”

He dropped the letters, his face a blustery pink instead of its normal pallor, his eyes glistening oddly in the dim light. “Since when is asking for some courtesy shown to my fiancée an attempt at controlling you? Rudeness is a terrible color on you, my love,” he spat out, only realizing after he’d said it that it was the first time he had acknowledged the inevitability of his marriage to Lydia. 

Duncan’s eyes widened and he drew a sharp breath in panic as Henry began to shred paper mindlessly - his poetry! Even in his complete rage he did not want anything irreversible to happen to the words that Henry poured so beautifully onto the page. He did not say anything though, for fear of showing a chink in his armour. Perhaps they were merely letters, correspondence between Henry and his upper-class peers that were better off in shreds anyway. 

“God, you are so selfish! Every time you open your mouth I find myself in awe of what you manage to come up with.” Duncan made a mental note to apologise to Atticus next time he saw him. Surely there was no way he would be able to continue his peaceful reading by the fire with this racket happening under the same roof. “Is it such a crime to want to be cared for, Henry? I By the man who so fervently claimed to love me, no less. I would do almost anything to make you happy and yet at some point in your life you have learnt that I am wrong to want the same in return. That’s how it is with you people, isn’t it? You take until they have nothing left to give and then you find someone new to start all over again.” He scowled, a golden curl falling over his eyes. “Perhaps I should stop being jealous of Lady Dearlove, and start pitying her.”

Duncan felt as if he were swimming desperately against a current sent by Neptune himself - there was no way he could win against what he knew was an argument laced with too much truth about the faults of his own actions. Duncan had taken advantage of Henry’s generosity, he knew that, but Henry had also let him fall into this rut of indolence and helplessness that had him stuck as a kept bird in a cage that had once help wonders but was exposing it’s bars more and more with each day that passed. “I would say the same to you, but condescension rather suits you almost as if you were born to it.” 

‘My fiancée’. The words struck a chord of melancholy within Duncan. Never before had he heard a verbal admittance of the fact that one day Henry and Lydia would be husband and wife, and he had clung to the fact as a last strand of hope that all was not lost for him. Green eyes widened like saucers and the anger within them quickly melded with sadness before he caught himself in his own shock and schooled his features back to rage though within him he felt as if someone had just shattered his heart. 

[wordsnquotes]

You’ve got to fall in love, fall out of love, no matter how much it hurts because my god, it’s worth it.

Emily Palermo, A Lesson in Entropy  (via wordsnquotes)

[duncanmarcovale]

( lady lydia dearlove. )

Of course, Lydia thought bitterly; Of course this little Echo would be in the misty moors. The moors were not her sanctuary, they were an unknown, a piece of wild, untamable (sublime) land that Lydia was incapable of understanding, for understanding would mean surrendering herself to the mists and whispers. 

At least Duncan Vale had the decency to bring something recognizable to her city sense in this place. 

Outwards, her manner was easy. With a light laugh absent of mirth, Lydia said.“Only you, Mr. Vale. I suppose we should both be relieved that the other is not a thief.” 

Thief? Thief! What an ironic choice of words, Duncan thought. If anyone around here was a their it was the Lady Dearlove herself stealing every last fragment of Duncan's happiness upon her arrival. “I suppose so.” The Italian replied flatly. 

He knew it was perhaps wrong to blame her for his unfortunate circumstance instead of himself for making poor decisions that had led to this situation - or better yet, Henry for bringing this all about - but that did not mean he managed to be any less bitter about Lydia’s presence at Mont Blanc. The Greeks would blame Helen far before they put the blame on Paris, he supposed. 

Though it was rude to smoke in front of a lady, Duncan made no effort to stop, instead watching her intently as he took another drag from between fingers that had only just stopped shaking. “What brings you out onto the moors, my lady? It is not exactly the first place I would expect to find someone of your... temperament." He drew out the last word condescendingly and smirked in a rather smug manner.

[elkining]

[hdearlove-blog]

a house divided || henry and duncan

[duncanmarcovale]

( lord henry dearlove. )

The idea of Duncan running back to Florence– to Allessi of all people!– was so ridiculous that it made Henry laugh. “And how would you get to Florence, light of my life? On my checkbook?” He snorted. “Don’t speak to me of entitlement– you certainly took no issue with spending my money until you were asked for something in return!” 

He became aware that the book was still digging into his shin, and, bending to pick it up, found that a page had been torn and there was a gash down the leather cover. “Brilliant,” he murmured, and rounded on Duncan, “Brilliant! Ruining my life wasn’t good enough, was it, no– now we’ve got to destroy my possessions too, hm?” There was a little hysterical tinge to his voice as he swept the room with a frenzied gaze. “Why stop here? Why not destroy my office? My entire home? You’ve done enough to my reputation–”

At this point he began seizing books and pulling them off their shelves. A globe fell to the floor and smashed, along with several glass ornaments. “Happy, my darling, my dearest, my pet?” Savagely, he upended a small table, the papers on it scattering on the ground. “Does it please you to look at the wreckage you’ve caused? You can’t have nice things of your own, so you’ll destroy mine–” 

“You underestimate me greatly, Henry.” Duncan’s words reverberated with every pent up piece of frustration that he had been keeping in since Lydia had moved into Mont Blanc. “Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of doing things without you.” Almost four years of his life had been spent with this man, in a sort of euphoric bliss that didn’t quite seem real in hindsight. It couldn’t be real, could it? Not if it was ending like this.

A smug look of satisfaction reached Duncan’s usually passive features at the idea that the book was ruined beyond repair. Either Henry would have to get rid of it, or he would be forced to look upon the wreckage every time he used it only to be reminded that Duncan Vale had once used it as a weapon. “Blame me for all your troubles, fine, I don’t care. But don’t you dare talk to me about reputation.” He yelled, his accent tripping clumsily over the words. “You have the standing to shoulder whatever slander is thrown at you, while I am forced to bear it wherever I go - if you are so blinded by your wealth and position that you think I have ruined you, clearly you are even dumber than you look and even more self-important than the rest of your people.”

He could not help but flinch as Henry began to smash, fell and ruin in a hysterical manner that had Duncan genuinely scared for a moment of what he had started here. “Clearly I’m not happy, Henry!” Duncan narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice. “Mio amore, mio tesoro, luce della mia vita.” Two could play at that game. The pet names that had once been delivered with such care and such genuine love were now launched as weapons with nothing but remorse behind them. “I do not live to create wreckage for you, Henry. Though clearly you derive pleasure from ruining the only happiness I’ve managed to find for myself. Does it make you feel powerful? Do you feel the need to control me because you can’t control the consequences of your own actions? Is that it!?”

[hdearlove-blog]

a house divided || henry and duncan

[duncanmarcovale]

( lord henry dearlove. )

The book sailed out of Duncan’s hands and found its mark on Henry’s shins. He gave a soft yelp of pain and his brow furrowed in annoyance. How dare Duncan?– the thought occurred to him, ridiculous in its melodrama, but all the same a sort of fiery streak through his thoughts. How dare Duncan? 

Not one to yell by nature more than to survey a scene of wreckage with lazy, arrogant detachment, Henry said bitingly, “I’m afraid, Duncan, that as long as you live in my house, wear clothes that I have purchased, and benefit from all of the luxuries of my standing– I may tell you what to say and do.” A flicker of annoyance burst into a little flame of anger, and he added, “For God’s sake– the fellow who pays for the dinner usually gets a say in what’s being served!”

He shook his head and took a deep breath, looking at Duncan through half-lidded eyes. “I cannot believe you insist on being so deluded. Welcome to reality, darling! Certain people are better than others, certain people may not galavant around as they please their entire lives on someone else’s dime– certain people have responsibilities, you fool. It’s well and good to live a lie when you’re not the one paying for it!” 

“That’s really what you think?” Duncan laughed bitterly. “You think that you have a say in my actions because I am spending your money?” How entitled could one person possibly become for their mind to spin things in the way that Henry’s did. “I’m not some kind of doll that’s going to forget how to open his mouth because you clothed it and fed it and put a roof over it’s head!” Duncan’s voice notched up in volume with every infuriated syllable. “Might I remind you that I have never asked for you to do what you do. When we left Florence you assured me, no matter how much I insisted, that it was of little matter and would always be as such.” If he had known he would become latent and dependent and stuck he never would have left Italy.

Henry’s lazy, arrogant replies were only stirring more rage in him and the famed Italian temperament was rising in his chest with every moment. “Better than others!?” Duncan spat the words as if they were curses worse than any that had reached his ears. “You think you’re better than me because you have greater means that I? You’re no better than Allessi.” The poet scowled. “Perhaps I should go back to him - I was vastly unhappy there but at least he didn’t intend to marry his cousin or pretend to call it obligation. At least he kept his prejudice for where I came from to himself.”

Henry knew better than anyone that Duncan’s life before he had whisked him out of if had been far less than ideal. Of course, he had no intention of ever going back to his former lover - he had already made the same mistake twice, he would not make it a third time - but Henry had been witness to the endless complaints about the Florentine aristocrat and knew the extent of Duncan’s dislike for the situation he had found himself in. When was it, he wondered, that he had started equating Henry and Lorenzo in his head. “I am grateful for all that you have given me, do not mistake that ever, but I am not so weak and deluded that I will lie down to let you treat me like dirt in return.”