hale the king(fisher)

H A LE R O T H S C H I L D twenty-one ; playboy extradinaire ; heir to rothschild group ; king of pretenders When you speak half a dozen languages and still retain that aristocratic bite with each, when you enter any given space and immediately become the centre of attention, when the world looks at you and knows that you’re the casanova that they warn their daughters about, it’s very difficult to convince people that you’re not the boy they think you are.

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

esmeraldaknight:

The days she had in London had passed quickly, the weeks slurring and stumbling out of reach, the grey of the Thames emptying into the Côte d'Azur, the Mediterranean, the riveria, and there was colour there, blooming green promenades and bright blues and crowded tables, white pearls looped around wrists like spare bleached bones, diamonds sparkling in the hollows of bare skin, around throats, adorning golden sun-kissed chests. Fear on the air tasted sharp and metallic, soaking into the grey streets with the rain in England; like honeysuckle and lemon meeting saltwater in France. 

Esme did what she was supposed to, after the sun set, after the gloaming succumbed to the darkness. Not entirely, because the casino glittered, and the city glittered, and she could see it all from where she stood. She called herself Lady Luck, kissing dice and cards and cheeks and brushing thighs with her fingertips. She didn’t want to see him, when she was floating on, gown trailing behind her, but she did, cornering some poor, pretty little thing, and something inside her roared. Rothschild. In his playground.

A plume of — not jealousy — something. Esme hung from his back, cheek pressed into Hale’s tailored suit, and when she pulled away there would be a streak of pink. She was a bored child playing games, because that what they were, wasn’t it, children playing games while their parents whispered and glanced back at them and kept adult secrets. 

“Always have to be the centre of attention, don’t you,” she said, keeping her voice low, remaining behind him, draped over his shoulders and warm, for once, “Like a little peacock. Maybe I could teach you subtlety so you won’t get caught with your feathers left in the wrong places. But you’ll have to pay for that, Monsieur Rothschild.” 

Hale feels her sidle up to him, all soft and quiet like a cat’s purr. Her weight fall upon him, a slim figure at his back; and he’s more than happy to play along in her little charade. In fact, he’s smugly glad that she’s approached him. Maybe she didn’t really hate him after all; all those birds these days thought they were so coy, playing hard to get. One arm slips deftly about Esme’s waist as he turns, and with one smooth movement, he pulls her body towards him, until they stand flush together, like a pair of diamonds on display. 

“Ca va, mon cheri?” he responds, as if her sharp words hadn’t been heard at all. To the woman who stands (now somewhat doubtfully) before him, he casts a reassuring smile. “Mon seour,” he says apologetically, by way of explanation. Turning back to the golden-haired nightbird:  “I’ve been looking for you for hours, Esmeralde;” and now he’s adopted a benevolent French-English accent, those rolling inflections and short ended words. “Have you been naughty again?” He quirks an eyebrow pointedly at Esme, looking down at her; a smirk slowly settling into place. “I had to pull quite a few strings to cancel that unfortunate debacle of yours from last year’s Prix.” 

(His original target, perhaps sensing the off-ness of the situation, listens to his dramatic retelling of his sister’s scandelous affair with the dealer for a high-stakes game of poker for a few moments, before excusing herself and rushing away.)

Hale furrows his brow with exaggerated disappointment. “Sweetheart! I almost had her in the bag.” He pivots with his arm still wrapped tightly about her, and maneuvers the both of them away from the window and towards the floor, a labyrinth of sloth and excess. All pretensions dropped, he resumes his normal English: boyish, queen’s variety. “She could have been our next big lead, you know.” 

He leans in, breathing the scent of her, jasmine and something else he can’t quite place. “And for the record, I tend to be most subtle when I’m left alone with my targets.” His smirk still hasn’t faded. “In case you were wondering.” 

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

E S M E  K N I G H T 

send ♔ for an angry text

(text) bitch tf ?!!

(text) if you want to be fucked by old men and viagra cocks for the rest of your life be my fckin guest

(text) u passed up on a bloody good chance

send ☏ for a vague text

(text) i know u better than u think sweetheart

send ✘ for a text that should never have been sent

(text) i’m in town baby

(text) meet me on market and south at midnight? drinks on me

(text, 11:50pm) nvm 

[avadakdavrawrites-archived]

iphone text meme ~

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

avadakdavrawrites:

(Okay, listen, this character meme isn’t mine but I can’t find the original link of it, so I’m posting it here because I am Trash™. Full credits to the original poster!)

Send a character and I’ll give you:

The name of your muse in my phone

A picture that my muse has of you in contacts

The ringtone for your muse

My muse’s last text to your muse

[frommemetoyou]

send a symbol - get the following from my muse ;

[nicotinewrites-blog]

send ✆ for a morning text send ♔ for an angry text send  ♠ for a drunk text send ☏ for a vague text send ⁇ for a worried text send ♣ for a text not meant for you send ✺for a sassy text send √ for a long-winded confession text send ☠ for a misguided advice text send ☢ for a desperate text send ☼ for a congratulatory text send ✘ for a text that should never have been sent

[skvoreshniki-deactivated2023020]

Should have been born that 19th century dandy boy who's doing opium and trips to Italy just to look aesthetic with extensive debauchery set against masterpieces of marble

[kdramafeed]

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

              He’s dressed to the nines, but the night isn’t nearly as exciting as it should be. How many times, after all, has he been placed in this same role? Make him a depraved beggar, a street peddler; clothe him in rags and let him eat stale bread: even a day of poverty would be more stimulating than a constant lifetime of rotating riches. 

             This entire bloody mess -- Hale didn’t sign up for this shit when he pledged himself to the Society. Of course, he’s in no immediate danger of being found out, but god knows what dear Uncle Victor might give up if he was compromised. Regardless. At this rate, he’s missed more days of school than he’s attended: and when it comes to Hale Rothschild, look-alike geniuses don’t quite cut it for attendance. A degree doesn’t really matter, of course. There were always backdoors to take, officials to bribe, summa cum laudes to net. But really, what the fuck was this whole fiasco? He’d come for the fun of it, and now he was part of a globally wanted crime organization. 

         Still, he’s known this life for too long to relinquish. What’s another day, another night? Strangely, he’s here today as precisely his own identity: there’s no better disguise than that which you are born with. There’s a key with his name attached to it, Rothschild -- there’s his golden Porche in the casino garage, his white bowties hung neatly up in the East-wing penthouse. He only had to be himself, and nothing could be said against him. It’s the proletariat who needs to hide behind masks: all those low-status pickpockets and scrappy burglers who had risen out of obscurity, their name worth less than a penny in these halls.

      Even so, he introduces himself to strangers as Clement Duval, young business magnate, here for a weekend of debauchery and bet-placing. Obviously, this means that he speaks impeccable French, has a generally snobbish air to his boyish beauty; and eyes women like a dog eyes a steak. In fact, he’s cornered one now, near the massive windows of the ninth floor, which overlook the city in all its splendor. He’s fishing, or maybe he’s just having fun. Nonetheless, there’s a general note of flirtation to his greeting --- 

                                              “C'est une vue jolie, n'est-ce pas?” 

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

milomalloryhayes:

He wants the hurt.

He wants the violence, the burst ventricles, bloodshot eyes and broken nose, if it came to it. He wants Hale to unleash whatever he hides so neatly under his skin, tucked away like a filthy secret that could destroy him if he breathed it in too deeply. He wants it, he wants to be beaten into the ground until he is numb and can’t feel his face anymore.

They say there’s a tragic beauty in self-destruction. Unravel yourself and lay yourelf bare. All the brutal anxiety Milo has tried to supress, to swallow, to ignore, it comes bubbling up, and it threatens to drown him.

And he hopes for that release. For a different kind of pain than the tight ropes slung around his chest, tightened with each pull in the wrong direction, tearing skin raw and open. The more he struggles to break free, the deeper he falls and yet, he keeps trying. There is a rock sitting in the back of his throat, making it hard to swallow, to breathe. A part of Milo wonders if Hale would do it. If he’d fuck him, just take him, no further questions asked, to be never spoken of again. He wonders if he’d feel something, for a change – or, instead, if Hale would lose himself in his frenzied terror and would choke the life out of Milo. A part of him wishes for the latter. He is so, so tired.

Like a wolf he approaches Hale, fangs dripping with a hunger the Rothschild misinterprets as sex, hips swaying with each step. Milo lets his shirt slip further down his shoulder, exposing the spanse of his neck. Abusing his looks comes easy to him now; God, it’s his job. But this time, it’s relentless, it’s pushy, it’s desperate and needy. The sardonic grin on his face oozes want. Has Milo ever mirrored Hale any more than he does in this very moment, with the way his teeth show through the broken grin, his eyes betray a lie he puts on to not fall apart?

“Don’t think I didn’t notice how you look at me.” It’s a lie, of course; just another story woven from rotten wool, to push and push, hoping to break, wanting the glass to cut his palms. Milo is close now, too close. Should be reach out and touch Hale? The filthy words roll off his lips like a cat’s content purr. By God, he knows how to be seductive, but this is the realm of nails scratched blunt and bloody against white walls. “Always so collected. It’s okay. You don’t have to hide with me. I won’t tell.”

As if from underwater, the sane  part of Milo’s brain is screaming at him. Begging him to stop, to turn away and leave. He is breaking off his own wings, hoping to die from the agony when what he should do is to keep fighting. To keep surviving. It isn’t over for him, not here, not like this, and maybe Milo wants to keep going, maybe he wants to start anew, maybe–

–maybe. Maybe all these things, he deserves, because he endures. But, and the Lord knew, he is so tired.

And so he tips his face up, daring Hale. As if he is saying, Kiss me. “I’ll let you fuck me real good,” he promised, voice barely above a whisper, eyelashes casting shadows on his cheekbones. “Call you daddy if you want. Bet I can make you cum harder than you ever have in your life before.”

Hit me. Please. Hit me.

Don’t think I didn’t notice how you look at me.

Hale is for a strange, despicable moment, frozen. The question flickers dimly in his mind; as he’s caught half by surprise, half by expectation: how the fuck did he look at a man like Milo? Haughtily, he hopes. With disdain and disgust, he hopes. But he’s played casanova for a long time now - in some ways, he was a whore too. The heist’s prostitute, tied up with carnal obligation and set out with his looks as his weapon, his charms his instrument. And god knows. God knows how he comes off, in those moments when he’s lost in the role of playboy extraordinaire, kissing all those old women flush on the mouth; letting all those young women bury their faces in the crook of his neck. Had he started all this? Had he somehow attracted to him a parasite that wouldn’t let go? 

But of course, he says none of this. The moment passes. A flash of offense ripples through his gaze, his lip curls, he’s filled with a searing heat that fills his chest and falters painfully in his throat. It wasn’t his fault, no matter the logic. This wasn’t his problem; shouldn’t be his problem. 

“Yeah, like a fucking lunatic,” he spits, and shoving Milo away from him, Hale swipes one hand angrily across his chin, as if cleansing himself of the other man’s touch. He eyes him distrustfully, full-fledged animosity radiating from him. But Milo doesn’t stop with his charade, so utterly put on like a show. A filthy show, where patrons stuffed hundred-dollar bills into waistbands and got blown under tables. Bet I can make you cum harder than you ever have in your life before. The words, so undoubtedly sexual - they incur within him an anger that burns redhot. He meets the gaze that so seductively seeks his, and feels something stir in the pit of his stomach. It terrifies him. It disgusts him to his very core, beyond anything else that he has ever encountered. 

He steps forward, grasps the front of Milo’s shirt tightly with one fist, and with a violent push, slams the nightbird against the nearest wall, pinning him there. A cruel smirk finds its way onto the canvas of his face; the likeness that has been painted a dozen times already, and will a hundred times more. He isn’t thinking. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know, for the first time in his life, what he should do. So Hale Rothschild, in all essence; is replaced by the King of Kingfishers - that face that he so conveniently slips into in the most desperate of situations. Riot boy. Spoiled, rotting, delirious -- but he’s always known how to deal with these sort of situations, better than Hale can. 

“You sick bastard.” And his grip tightens, his knuckles shoving forward until they press tightly against the other man’s throat. “You sick, thirsty little bastard.” He’s strangely calm, despite the pounding of his heart in his chest. Each pulse rings sluggishly through his ears, the world aside from this instant fading from him. Hale leans in, until his mouth is merely an inch away from Milo’s ear. He can smell the cologne - expensive, but not expensive as his. His fingers twist cruelly, pressing ever more painfully into the other’s skin and flesh. A malicious sentiment has taken root in him. “But you know what, sweetheart? I play this game too.” He laughs, breathlessly, as his gaze shifts upwards, to the ceiling. What a beautiful fucking masterpiece. He can feel the warmth radiating off Milo’s skin; all that sex waiting to be let out. Ha. 

“But -” and his grip constricts until he’s sure that Milo can’t breathe, until he’s sure that he’ll leave a bruise, “not with you.” And at this, his eyes narrow. 

In one fell movement, Hale lifts and then slams Milo against the wall. Again. And then once more, each time more forceful than the last. He releases the white collar roughly, as if shaking putrid water from his fingers. He could do worse. He’s done worse. But this is a party, my god, he doesn’t want to dirty his pristine suit. He leaves the knuckle-splitting to Ciro. He’s always done his best work with his words, his tongue, and his body in the dark. 

He’s mocking, snakelike. “What, Mallory-Hayes? You’re fucking deaf when I yell, so I thought I’d try something new. Don’t look at me like that. I’d almost think you were serious about all this shit.” Something low and devastating has entered his tone. His heartbeat has slowed: standing across from the rumpled mess that an American callboy is; fixing his cufflinks, Hale has never felt more in his element. His gaze falls coldly. English nobility has never been known for their warmth, and today he turns to ice. 

“Touch me again, and you’ll wish that I left you on the street corner.” He says it so quietly that it might be a lullaby, but you only need to look at that terrifying calm in his eyes to know that he has not felt this convicted for years. “Convoluted fucking thanks this is.” He scoffs once, and then without further comment, turns on his heel and strides away, leaving Milo and all those false pretensions to rot. 

[zephoradances]

Guests - Open

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

zephoradances:

Zephora moved through The Lusitania with a slight smirk settled permanently onto her tastefully painted lips. Occasionally it would twist into a smile of recognition as she made eye contact with a select few patrons. Others bowed out of her way as she glided through the room. In each hand she bore a sparkling drink. Silently she approached a figure seated at the edge of the room. Offering one glass, she stared down her nose with a bemused expression. “And what brings you here?” 

He’s been waiting here for what seems like ages, and it’s made him antsy. Has velvet ever felt so rough beneath his touch? Even the pristine, artful folds of his suit seem to irritate. Nonetheless, Hale has his best face on today, and he must keep it so. Sincere, altruistic, dressed to the nines - his cufflinks shine gold not for a night of pleasure, but of concern. Certainly, he wouldn’t want to put forward anything but his utmost for the mother of the most brilliant girl alive. And when she comes, he seems to freeze. Zephora, while certainly far from her daughter in attitude and disposition - carries that same piercing gaze, the same rich black locks. He is all at once intimidated (a word that a Rothschild never uses lightly) and sanctified by her presence. 

The matriarch draws near. He looks up at her, his hair curling slightly at the edges from the rain that was drizzling outside - does he look like a boy? A young man? He seeks to appear slightly earnest, but also genuine. His mouth curls up slightly in thanks. And he thinks - he should aim to impress. But then again, his Russian was far from the best. Babushka, was that it? No no no, he’d better play it safe. “Madam Villiers,” he says at last. “I’d hoped to talked to you.” A pause, as he accepts the drink she offers. “About one of your employees, actually. “ Internally, he was having a field day. Externally? An angel had taken a sip of champagne. 

“May we speak privately?” God forbid, that grubby American was lurking about, ready to prey on a poor Oxford boy like him. He’d better get out of plain sight before Milo popped up. He casts a look about him, seemingly innocent - but in reality, he’s making a sweep of the room. 

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

xbeauregard:

Xanthe needed a release; an escape from the scene her father had caused. As she left the hall, she could feel embarrassment rise to her face. Xanthe Beauregard only felt embarrassment once in her life; she sent a man and his family into exile for it.

That wasn’t something she could do to her father.

…Not yet.

She went to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of unopened Cristal and a wheel of her father’s finest brie. He’d miss it, she knew, but he owed her. 

She found herself alone in the parlour; a well decorated room reserved for small get-togethers with the most distinct company. Now, it would house Xanthe and her bottle of champagne while she made plans to remove herself from the situation further.

“Oui,” she exclaimed into her phone, her tone suggesting she was on top of the world, not burning with irritation and venom. Her publicist was eager to have her back in France. Everyone wanted Xanthe for their latest advertising campaigns. “J'arrive à Paris demain.” She hung up the phone, satisfied that she had a reasonable excuse to leave the Chateau and the company. I have to keep up appearances, she’ll tell her parents. Which, was true. Even if that wasn’t the true reason she was leaving. 

While Xanthe wanted to be alone, she also didn’t have much fight left in her to protest company. “Take a seat,” she said to her disturber. “Have a drink. I’m sure you need one.”

After his encounter with Milo fucking Mallory-Hayes, and the texts that blew his phone nearly out of his hands mere moments after he had stormed out of the guest wing ( “m8 u wouldn’t believe what just fcking happened” ), one could certainly say that Hale’s night was rapidly declining, plummeting into a deeper abyss by the minute. He felt both mentally and physically peeved, and self righteousness followed on his heels: it was aggravation on a leash. A rare inclination to punch a wall was tremoring through him. He felt like the world was picking him apart by the seams, and at the centre of it all was that fucking American call-boy. My god. He’d take it up with Zephora Villiers herself if Milo so much as breathed in his direction again. 

The worst part of the situation was that he’d left the bottle of champagne behind. Milo was probably going to pawn it now. Bloody fantastic. 

Smooth steps harried, Hale descended the spiral staircase, his Oxfords clicking smartly against the alabaster, coat draped about his shoulders. He hadn’t grown up in this chateau, unlike Adelaide, he had always been the lesser familiarized cousin. But nonetheless, he knew it well; enough so to have several rooms and niches that hid his secrets - and certainly, he knew where the Beauregards kept their goods. Nothing as good as the Armand - the cellar was the true treasure trove - but enough to take the edge off. Though, to call his current state merely an edge was an understatement. 

He enters the kitchen with the same hurricane-esque brusqueness that has characterized his path, and unexpectedly finds Xanthe already sitting at the bar, looking half-devastated but fully devastating in her evening gown. A bottle of wine rests on the black granite counter; it’s open. 

“My god, do I. You read my mind, sweetheart.” He moves to join her, filling a goblet to the brim with a tactless twist of his wrist. He downs a large gulp, faster than he should: but what is tradition in these dire times? “And-” A long, pregnant pause. He’s still angry. “You wouldn’t believe what just fucking happened to me.” He takes a breath, the type of breath a child takes before he’s about to go on an hour-long rant. 

“You do know that Milo fellow, don’t you? The one with the orange mop on his head? Of hair, I mean.” 

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

milomalloryhayes:

Not even one minute in, and Hale is already giving Milo what he is looking for.

He laughs. He laughs, despite the absurd comment that should have earned Hale a punch right in the face. It’s loud and chesty, the laugh of an amused man, of a lost man, of a man who has given up on giving shits. Hale, as Milo has learned, is a walnut you cack just to find its fleshy inside rotten and black. What a disappointment. Once upon a time, Milo had been certain that there is more to Hale than meet the eye. That, just like his cousins, that the something that draws Milo so to him must be special.

But he knows now. Oh, he knows. He could be patient, he could be kind; he could be helpful and gentle and he could try to nurture as much as he wants to, but a man who desires no salvation isn’t worth saving.

It’s funny to Milo that he thought Hale and he could be friends one day. If he thinks about it now, he doesn’t want a friend like that. The slurs, the superiority; he’s seen it all, in his past life and in this one. Milo tips his head back and takes another drag of his cigarette before he stubs it out on the window sill and flicks it out of the window.

Let the show begin.

“You know,” Milo says as he swings his feet back inside, cigarette smoke escaping from between his lips. He looks at Hale, and a switch is turned. Not only in his head, but his entire demeanor shifts, flesh exposed, blades ready. Tonight, Milo doesn’t want to be Milo. He doesn’t want to be sunshine and tolerance, he doesn’t want to be the golden boy everyone – at this point – expects him to be. No, tonight, he wants to hurt. And he knows exactly what to say to poke the sleeping bear.

His feet hit the ground but Milo remains where he is, leaning against the windowsill now. Feet crossed at his ankles, arms around his waist and hands on his sides, Milo looks Hale down like he would a patron, and he doesn’t hide it. If anything, he makes it obvious. He is provoking.

“I lied, back in London.” His voice is casual and Milo shrugs a shoulder. “I do want to fuck you. Or, more like, I want you to fuck me.”

What people often forget, and what Hale facilitates with ease in particular circumstances, is that he is still just a boy. Twenty-one, on the brink of adulthood: but he’s still in school, filled with adolescent prejudice and the entitlement of his father’s money. He’s rash, irrational, a legend among his peers, all at once altruistic and stunningly mean. And if there’s anything he is, it’s heterosexual. He’s spent half his life seducing the opposite sex, taking what they give to him, and never looking back. The very idea, the very concept of anything different: fucking bullshit, he’d tear it apart before it could even touch him. He isn’t expecting this. At first, he simply stares, frozen - without reaction. “What the fuck?” It slips out as a natural phrase, the first viable thing that comes to mind. His voice is strangely calm. His mind whirls. 

I do want to fuck you. Or, more like, I want you to fuck me.

Then it sinks in. A myriad of images flash through his mind - his Kingfishers, their sardonic laughter echoing about him like the cheers of a crowd; fast and expensive, loud and explosive - grandoise parties of the highest caliber, smashing champagne bottles on dressers and watching the walls rain money. Ciro snorting coke from a woman’s navel, tongue on tongue, bodies against bodies. Hale looks down at the bottle of Armand clutched tightly (so tightly that his knuckles are white) in his hand, and he envisions, for a moment, lifting it and smashing it against Milo’s head. 

He’s ANGRY, angrier than he’s been in a long time. He sees red, his face warms, his eyes narrow ; he’s shell-shocked by rage, and it isn’t going to be pretty: this isn’t his con face, and he likes to think that’s it’s not his true face either, but does he really know anymore? Things are blurring, and it’s not just from the shots of vodka he had earlier tonight with Ciro. He steps forward, the weight of the gold in his hand itching. But of all that he is, he isn’t violent.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He’s squinting, more out of incredulity than anything else. It’s been ingrained in him, this fear, this bigotry; it’s in his culture and in his lineage, and he remembers hazing one of his initiates to the ground and back over it. Eat dirt, get out. He knows what he knows. “To think,” and now that edge enters his tone, but it reeks of utter disgust. “That I almost saw potential in you.” He’s finally beginning to think again. He steps forward again, and now that his hands are free, he feels the inclination to ruffle something up, he has to ruin something, he has to, or he won’t be satiated. There’s a hungry, vicious creature in him, and it wants to see Milo fall apart. He shoves the other man’s shoulder with one hand, smirking. Stay calm, Hale. Calamity always stems from a level head.  

“Yeah?” He needs to gather his wits. “Yeah, I’ll fuck you.” He places the champagne bottle gingerly upon the bed, before turning. “I’ll fuck you right into St. Barts, where you can pay for your fucking hospital bills with that ring I gave you, you sick bastard!” He’s dressed immaculately, but there’s something dirty in this room, and his words bring it to life. His voice rises, he’s nearly yelling; they won’t hear him - there are two dozen halls and doors between the congregation downstairs and his own personal fiasco. He’s almost yelling. He’s yelling. 

“Don’t you get your arse rammed enough in a night’s work? Who the fuck do you take me for, you filthy little faggot?! I don’t fucking know who hired you. Fucking conman, yeah. Real fucking subtle.” A sudden idea occurs to him, and once it seizes, he is filled with suspicion. “Did someone put you up to this? Be fucking honest. I hate it when people lie to me.” The last line, he realizes a moment later, is more true than anything else he’s said. It’s a glimpse of the insecurity that lies beneath. He waits, gaze boring into Milo’s, challenging, waiting. 

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

milomalloryhayes:

@oxfxrdprince

The faint sound of piano music is a mere whisper in Milo’s ears. Tunes from a different life, long behind him, even if he can still taste it in his mouth. In this room, upstairs, he is hiding from his fellow thieves like a child would from a drunken father, hoping that he wouldn’t be found before dawn. Faux laughter, the illusion of a joint union, little ridiculous canapées with expensive cavier on them; Francis and the Beauregards have spared no expenses to welcome the Lohovarys with a feast. Taking their coats, shaking their hands, kissing their cheeks – they are cuddling wolves expecting to not get bit when they already have been. And not only once.

Sweet nicotine fills Milo’s lungs. He sits on the window sill, back and feet up against the frame. His jacket and tie lie on the foot of the bed, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and first few buttons of his shirt popped open in impatience. The window open, his gaze is fixed on the world outside though he doesn’t really see. He hardly does these days, it seems. Why else would he be here, waiting for the one person who would scorch his skin right to the bone?

Another drag. The grey smoke dances in tendrils and vanishes into the blue night, leaving Milo alone with his soured throughts. This is not how it is supposed to go, and he knows that much. He knows he should get up and leave, leave to leave Hale to nothing but an empty room and the smell of cigarettes. Milo knows that’s what he should do.

It isn’t what he wants to do.

A soft sigh escapes him and he pulls his legs closer to his chest to hug them. The way he is acting, walking knowingly into the devil’s lair with his arms wide open guarantees utter disaster. Destruction, especially inflicted on yourself, can be a beautiful thing for the tortured soul. Both punishment and absoluteion. Milo, he doesn’t hope for either. The foolishness of hope has brought him nowhere. He hoped to give him and Rosie a better life. He hoped to save her from Helena’s greedy claws, hoped it would be enough and that one day, they would be able to go home. He hoped for too much and eventually, fallen harder than his bones could possibly endure. So there he sits now, a beautiful, broken boy who is beautifully broken, who finally lets the past five years drown him in their raging waves. 

His hands start to shake, throat tight with the threat of a desperate scream. Milo curls his fingers into his palms until he is holding something non-existent in a white knuckled grip, his jaw locked. This is why Hale is coming. This is why he is the first and only one Milo wants here. Hale would hurt him. And Milo, in return, him.

It is easier than the crushing weight of realising that you fucked up.

The door opens and Milo almost misses it through the echo of blood rushing in his ears. He forces himself to relax, even if only slightly, and face Hale. There is…something in the American’s eyes, lying behind them, burst ventricles that ooze blood. Milo hides it away, or at least he tries his best. There is a crooked smile on his face. “That for me?” he asks, pointing at the champagne with index and middle finger, cigarette still trapped between them. “Better be.”

Bowtie fit neatly at his throat, cufflinks looped expertly through the silk of his sleeves, Hale Rothschild saunters through the halls of his cousins’ chateau with a meandering ease, employing a purposeful stride questioned by none. A bottle of champagne, Armand de Brignac - suspends from his grasp. It gleams with otherworldly light, a true symbol of wealth; as iconic as the young man who so carelessly handles it. Loire Valley is not his home - but he is always at home among opulence, and so it becomes like home. The gilded walls and lacquered surfaces of these awning chambers and light-kissed alcoves call to him. Open, spacious, accented with white cream and gold velvet: these castles have seen the rise and fall of France, and now it has seen crime, as dastardly and secretive as the plots against the Sun King three centuries past. 

Much as he looks the part of Beauregard (Rothschild, really - and that had always been a few steps above), the truth is that he doesn’t quite know what’s he’s doing here. Even as he walks towards the West Wing, he keeps having to remind himself of why. The answer bothers him, he’s unwilling to accept it. Milo fucking Mallory-Hayes. The very thought of the name, and the man behind it, sends a bitter taste through his mouth. Their last encounter, and the most disastrous of any Hale has partaken in, ticks incessantly on his mind like a parasite unwilling to relinquish its tiny fucking jaws. Time and time again he has lain in bed - clothed, naked, alone but never alone - replaying the night, or what he remembers of it; and inevitably the thoughts would loop around to the same outcome. Jaw clenched, anger and disgust captured in the slit of his gaze. 

Knowledge is power. That’s what Silas, the “scholar” always says. Bloody load of shit. What Hale wants isn’t knowledge, or power - but vengeance. No can takes advantage of a Rothschild and escapes with immunity. No one sees his true face and has the privilege of toting that around with them. He has willingly given himself once. For Evie -- sweetheart, twilight darling. Anything beyond that once is something stolen from him, and he wants it back. Of the few things that he holds sacred, the most guarded of them all is the perception others hold of him. And tonight, he wants it all back. 

Drawing upon the doorway, any initial acceptance he had mustered has faded. Though he may text like an adolescent boy, none of the joviality or lightness of an “lol” seems to linger about him. He might look straight out of a Gieves & Hawkes catalog, but to be fooled by his complacent exterior was to fall trap: he had deluded greater men then any who stood on these grounds with less, and he can easily do it again. Stepping into the room, his gaze focuses upon the figure idling graciously at the windowsill, cigarette held between two fingers. Hair the colour of a fucking papaya. Already half-undressed like some uncultured civilian, the nerve. He enters without greeting, eyeing Milo with distrust.

“My god, you can’t help yourself, can you?” His voice is sly and malicious, precisely as he means it to be. He snorts. “We’re at an induction ceremony, mate, not at the whorehouse.” 

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

milomalloryhayes:

The clean, surgical cut is Milo’s, but it is Hale’s choice to bleed out.

He is, to put it mildly, utterly taken by susprise. Left in his place, across from Hale; with his feet cemented to the marble floor beneath him, gravitiy pulling him towards it in a mocking heaviness. Eyes fixed on the boys across from him, so hard to believe that this is real, and that this is happening, no matter how many times Milo counts his breaths to assure himself this is neither a dream, nor a bad joke. He is left to stand, almost as laid bare as Hale, because this is the last thing Milo expected, wanted. It is the last thing he thought he’d ever see, the king crumbling into his pieces, shards of glass laying scattered all over the floor and if Milo moves now, he’ll cut himself. It is no different for Hale. The more he moves, the more wounded he seems, and the louder his voice gets, disgust and desperation, hopelessness and What could have beens hidden behind words that should have aimed to hurt, but only stir one emotion in Milo, one he once thought he would never associate with Hale Rothschild:

Sympathy.

How ridiculous, isn’t it? People like Hale, filthy rich and entitled, spoiled beyond imagination, rude and hated and loved by many, they were envied at best. People like him, they have everything they could wish for, and if they don’t, they simply buy it. Financial stability is a peanut, another luxury they don’t need to concern themselves with while other people slave away at two jobs to make it through the month and feed little hungry mouths. Once upon a time, Milo was one of them. Never as rotten as Hale, never as much of a brat, but he knew what it felt like to have a proud amount of money at your disposal and not a care in the world. He knew what it felt like to afford the finer things and enjoy them, not bothering to savour his bites because he could always come back for more, couldn’t he?  He used to be at the receiving end of the jealousies, of the sighs and looks that spoke of more than just sugar daydreams. Perhaps, one day, Milo would have been scum himself. Taking joys on seeing the little people work for him, for his attention, his approval, his love. But tragedies hit silently, cuts and bruises in shadows, so he is here now, in London, legs spread and heart silenced. Watching someone who should have been invincible fall apart.

Milo’s first instinct is to touch Hale. To reach out, put a hand on his arm; get him to focus and breathe, to help, because that’s how he does it, that’s how he helps: by touch, soothing, assuring the other person that they are not alone, and that Milo, to the best of his abilities, would try to mend what hurt. This is as old as he is, born from the very first nightmare Rosie woke up from. Milo remembers sitting on the edge of her bed, one of her hands between his, holding it until it was not okay, but better. He wants to do the same for Hale, but his gut tells him no. Somehow, he is convinced it wouldn’t work in the same way it did for Rosie.

But to watch Hale, this golden prince, the Rothschilds’ pride and joy, pace in Milo’s room like a wounded animal, with his voice rising in desperation and the words flowing, flowing, flowing, painting the walls, staining the rug, breaking the gilded mirror as if they are Bloody Mary’s clawed hands. The room is filled with what is but had never been, with the sad truth that had been hidden by believable lies for so many years. And between all this stands Milo, patient, waiting, catching whatever Hale throws at him, letting him speak, letting him get it all out, because his vow of silence is broken, and from the way the Kingfischer speaks and speaks and speaks, the current of a river that wouldn’t stop, he can tell that it is the first time Hale has freed his hurts from their golden cage.

You fucking overestimated me, Milo! Did you really think that I was like you? That I was good and noble and that I spent my nights thinking about all the things I could’ve been? The insults, Milo understands now, are meant to hurt; they are Hale lashing out, thrashing, hitting what he could, because he is angry – at Milo, at the world, but most importantly, at himself, at who he has become. This beautiful Dorian Gray with all his wrongs and vices, heavenly, poison, rotten and disgusting. If Hale would tear down his oil painting if he could? Burn it in fire to cleanse it, save what he could? Milo breathes in through his nose and steps in closer. Hale’s behaviour needed an explanation, but how could he have known he’d unravel the entire ball of yarn with one single tug?

“Hale.” His name is spoken softly, gently, hoping to catch his attention, but not pushing, never pushing; instead nurturing, or at least trying to be; the beckoning call of a loving face, even if Milo isn’t that. He isn’t even sure if he’s a friend, for now he knows Hale Rothschild doesn’t have friends. “Hale, look at me.” This red-haired American boy with the ridiculous Southern accent stands tall, broad shoulder pushed back, waiting, an air of faux confidence because even with what he just witnessed, Milo doesn’t know if his words will actually help. But he waits, waits until Hale can stop and look at him, until his heartrate slows back down, even if just a little. And when Milo has his attention, no matter how fleeting, no matter how broken, a puzzle whose pieces just won’t fit, he smiles, then speaks.

“You are a piece of shit,” he says and the way he says it, his tone, it’s so gentle you would’ve assumed he’s talking to one of the many cherubs inside this room instead of Hale. “But I don’t think you’re evil. You’re not a villain.” A shrug of his shoulders, and there it is again – the need to touch. It is odd to Milo, trying to comfort someone without actual physical contact between them. “We’re not as different as you think you are,” he continues, but doesn’t elaborate. The tale of Brian Mallory and his family is one he is unwilling to share. “but you’re right, we’re nothing alike. And I didn’t assume we were.”

Milo rubs his own arm, breathes in again. He thinks for a moment, for the right thing to say, for something, anything, to help. “I know you could be better.” What he says sounds wrong, sounds harsh and cruel, but it’s the truth, so Milo doesn’t hold it back. “You live your life surrounded by these assholes who expect you to be an even bigger asshole. Those two dimwits downstairs? Assholes. Do you think they’d care about any of what you just told me? Even one bit? And they expect you to not care, either. But you do.” A pause, the crooked ghost of a smile. “You really care, don’t you?”

It’s a minefield: one wrong step and this entire situation could blow up in Milo’s face. Yet, he keeps trying, because – like Hale said – he is good and noble, even if he is flawed. “There’s good in everyone, Hale, and I believe that. Call me naïve, but I do. That means I also believe there’s still good in you, hidden beneath all the pretty faces you put on. You’re just too busy being anyone else but yourself.”

He takes another step, is close again. Hale smells like cologne and alcohol and sweat, such a deadly cocktail of a scent. “I’m not trying to seduce you, either. I’m a whore, remember? I do what I’m paid for.” Milo grins; it’s his attempt of a joke, no matter how heavy in its sarcasm, no matter how degrading, no matter how much his words mirror Hale’s. What I’m paid for, he says, thinking of Hale’s gold ring still in the pocket of his jacket. “Though you do might want to sit down for a second. Just catch your breath, yeah?”

“I don’t need a fucking therapist,” he seethes, head snapping as he fixates his most withering glare upon his opposition. His pulse is thrumming, violent and alive, and there are lions clawing through his lungs, burrowing tunnels in his chest. Milo’s words, though consolatory, only fuel his anger and despise; and it spikes, again and again. What a fucking mess. What a fucking mess, and he was at the butt of it. He craves a shot. Whiskey. Vodka. Pour a fucking cauldron down his throat. 

“Don’t fucking ‘yeah’ me, whore. ” With a snort of disgust to accompany the derogation, Hale paces back and forth again, his Oxfords clicking across the marble and carpet, breathing heavily as he tries to calm himself. A task that usually takes little more than a moment now takes the entirety of his willpower. The dams are leaking, and he’s desperately racing to patch them before the towers fall and his whole world floods. Profanities thread through his mind, and he keeps a steady murmuring trail of them on his lips: son of a bitch, cocksucking motherfucker, slumrat fuck, bastard piece of shit - it’s a coping mechanism. All his boys have taken to doing it - once they’d seen him lapse into a bout of contained madness as he saw what they had done - my god, if you can live through murder with a filthy mouth of syllables, you can live through anything. 

“Fuck,” is the word he says again and again. “Fuck.” And when the minutes have passed and he finally is able to see clearly again, the red film faded, he’s suddenly filled with an overwhelming fatigue. Dragging his hands down his face, he - dressed so impeccably for an evening of unchaste design - turns again on his offender, and this time his gaze narrows in open, non-disguised malice. They are not friends. Despite all that Milo has said, has seen - they are not, and will never be, friends. Hale vows it to himself, and with an exhale of distaste, he too vows that he will avenge the night. He doesn’t lose this easily. Milo hasn’t won anything.  

There’s a moment when he looks superficially composed: his hair is tousled and damp with sweat, and there is a rumpled quality to his tailored coat - but there is a sobriety to his gray eyes and a cruel turn to his mouth that suggest that he has prepared another torrent of rhetoric. Then the moment passes. 

I do what I’m paid for. It’s said like a joke, but Milo’s the only one laughing. Yeah. Hilarious. He’d paid for what? Certainly not this. Why, he’d pay again just to get out of this stifling hell. 

“Then fetch me a drink,” Hale sneers, “And don’t bother coming back. I swear to god,” and his voice takes on a vicious promise, rising in volume, “I’ll file a fucking restraining order if I see your face again.” Without warning, he advances towards the bed, but abruptly passes the other man in order to fall heavily into the satin sheets, sitting down, fingers clutching at the sleek fabric. The mattress conforms to his weight. He squeezes his eyes shut for a long second, before they open again. Then, silently, he scoots towards the small, ornate table placed besides the four-poster with an almost hectic motion. 

Turning his back to Milo, who he conscientiously ignores, Hale tears his bowtie off, unbuttoning the first few buttons of his shirt. Then, he reaches for the golden chain about his neck, lifting from beneath his shirt a vial; which glints briefly against the golden V of skin, before he detaches it from his person. Hands shaking slightly, he unscrews the cap of the vial, and pours from it a line of white powder, which falls unevenly upon the bedstand surface. His breaths are uneven -- anticipation perhaps; or a desperation for relief -- he reaches blindly into his suit pocket for his wallet, and upon finding it, pulls a crisp bill and platinum credit card from it. 

Cutting the cocaine into four straight white lines, Hale rolls the hundred euro note with expert precision, and at final last, lowers his head to take his hits, sniffing loudly as each slams immediately against his nasal cavity, then, after a moment, his consciousness. 

Hale rubs the excess powder from the tip of his nose, back still to the rest of the room. He feels, and he waits for it to happen with eager trepidation - all at once, like himself again.

“Well?” he says, and it’s returned to him, the controlled, well-formulated tease of his voice. The mean grandiosity, the tantalizing euphoria, his nerves shot to death and brought back to life reborn. He’s calm. He’s finally at a place where he feels in control. The racing heartbeat, the confidence - he is back in familiar territory, if not for the presence that lingers in the room. “Do you want to see me in court? Get the fuck out.”

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

Text → Silas

Hale: salut

Hale: wheres ur champagne

[two minutes pass]

Hale: reply to me

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

Text → Hale

Milo: istfg.

Milo: left wing, guest room at the end of the corridor. bring champagne.

Hale: the fuck

Hale: u better not pull that homo shit again

Hale: tf am i getting the champagne

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

Text → Hale

Milo: Come see me.

Milo: Asap.

Hale: lolol no

[ten minutes later]

Hale: where r u

[oxfxrdprince-blog]

villiersevie:

She sees how he does that. In that exact moment, in ever movement of his body – she can clearly see it. How easy the words come to him, how fluid he monitions his hands, how he makes himself feel wanted, needed. Hale Rothschild has the ability to make others crave every bit of his attention; and how easily she could be swayed, how easily she could let herself fall for that second nature of his – and she loves the game, but she is a master in it too.

How everything went so wrong, then? How could someone obfuscate his dazzling figure? She watches as his his eyes travel across her lips, and she has to pinch herself to remember not to, not now, not here – but the burning anger didn’t let him be a distraction. Her eyes, too, travel across his lips, across his chiseled jaw, to meet his eyes. She is close, so close that his scent lingers on her tongue. “It was so simple, how could you fail at that?” And frustration could be heard in her voice, not at him, but at how could someone not fall for him when she was struggling not to.

Maybe it was the intimacy – maybe it was the fact that Evie knew the dark corners of his souls, knew him scrapped raw. She had gotten drunk on it that night, and never forgotten. She had seen him, and he had allowed her to. It was different from strangers and their simple pleasures – gods, it was even different from the deep ends of her love for Dmitri. What was that?

“I have to think.” She whispers at him, because she does need to think, but she can’t – with him so close, with her not wanting to move. Not here, not now. “I could go for it now, but she would probably be there.” It was suicidal, but that night called for extreme measures. She wasn’t thinking like the Thief Lord she was to become – she is being the girl who risks it all, she is using the Evie that jumps from personality to personality and never stays in one place, she is being selfish, being the Evie that tried to reason with her dead before coming there, saying that she could pull that alone. She looks up at him again, anger burning slowly and being replaced by something else, entirely – her body reacting, trying to find a way out. “I could steal from them.”

It’s the wrong place and the wrong time, but he can’t help but hunger for her. Like a starving man willing to do anything for a sip of wine, a piece of bread - he renders himself before her; the girl who quite literally lights his vision every time she’s in his vicinity. As Evie speaks, half to herself, Hale hangs upon her every word with a fervent fascination. Of his dozens and hundreds, all those long-legged women with the silky locks and satin robes, none have ever held his attention as the girl before him holds it. She’s irreplaceable, and he is reminded of it with every breath he takes, her bright, clever eyes boring in his. It’s dark. He’s smoldered by her presence. 

“Alright,” he murmurs in response to her thinking, as he sees her concentration change from one of anger to one of quick innovation. Hale reaches for her wrist before she can move, not quite so confident as he usually is with such advances. But his fingers circle about it gently, and he grins at her with a row of white teeth, buzzed on champagne and the ethereal quality of their situation. “You know that you’re brilliant, darling, don’t you?” It’s a rhetorical question, and they both know it. His eyes roam over hers, that dark, luminescent gaze. And he could let go, but he doesn’t. Her pulse beats beneath his subtle touch, and for a moment he is simply quiet. 

That could be the end of it. She would be brilliant, and he would be in her debt, because she is always their saviour, the she-wolf who bares her teeth and fights out of every altercation with jewels and masterpieces held between her teeth. Yet Hale understands that the plan went awry when it fell to him; that he is the reason why the alarms have gone off - his inadequacy, for the first time, has shown itself beyond the skin. “I’d be absolutely lost without you,” he says more quietly. Very few people, if any, have ever heard him apologize. “I’m sorry that all this happened.”