Give Me Something New

-prologue

Seth looked to his right, and it was a dazzling young man, blond, with a beautiful smile. You could just tell that he was in love.

"Are you waiting for your carriage, sir?" He asked. They stood just inside the hall. The party was finished now; everyone was gathering their stuff and leaving. The blond man turned his face, startled, as if he was just noticing the existence of the human race.

"Oh, no. Quite the opposite, I am waiting for my friend to arrive." He smiled politely, "The host. He has gone on a small business meeting, you could say."

"Lucas Val?" Seth asked for confirmation.

"Yes." The blond nodded, then looked embarrassed like he just remembered something. "How rude of me. Silk Honey."

Seth shook his hand. "Seth Versace. Nice to meet you."

"How do you do." Silk said, just as a carriage stopped outside on the cobblestones. Lucas's silhouette emerged from it, quickly opening a big, canopy-like object, and the rain slid off the curve top. Seth stared at it in confusion even after Lucas had entered the safe shelter of his own rooftop. It dripped and Lucas ditched it outside on the steps so easily.

"Hello, Seth, isn't it?" Lucas shook his hand while he was still in a daze. "Or Mr. Versace?"

"Doesn't matter." He said lightly, then glanced at the strange object again. "What is that?"

"An umbrella, a device that keeps the rain off you." Silk said, "It's not in trend yet. It will in a few years. In the mean time, Seth, how are you going to get home?"

He poked his head outside the door and looked around. "Did my servant ditch me?"

Silk looked surprised. Seth couldn't blame him. That sort of language wouldn't exactly be popular among any kind of people, really.

"He might as well have. Did you tell him to wait for you with the carriage?" Before Seth could answer, the blond suddenly smiled. "There you go, Seth."

At first he couldn't see anything. It was darkness outside, except for the lanterns that hung outside houses. It was the month of October and between Michaelmas and Christmas, when people were required to give a lamp out. Now they looked like imprisoned fireflies, shimmering in the dark, thinly-curtained by the chilling rain. Then it appeared; his own carriage, an ochre colour, now an impossible grey in the rain.

"Thank you for inviting me." He shook hands with Lucas, pumped it twice quickly, business-like, before disappearing into the rain. Seth had to run, and secretly he wished for a device as useful as the umbrella.

Silk turned around and glanced at Louis, who was sitting in the corner of the room among the littered couches. He was in one of the armchairs, his legs slung over one armrest and his back resting against another, a glass of wine in his hand, swiveling in the glass, and a book in another, resting in his lap.

"Hey." He picked up the glass swiftly in one go, leaving Louis frozen and his eyes glancing up. "Don't drink too much. I've seen you having a bit already."

"Alright then." His lover looked back down at his book, then finally gave up and held his thumb between the pages before closing the hardcover book.

Louis had beautiful blond hair, a shade darker than Silk's. His eyes were an uncertain blue, over smooth cheekbones the colour of milk. He had a slightly curved nose, down first then out, lips a light shade of crimson. Everything of his had the word "beautiful" written in cursive all over it, and they both knew it. Now the two blonds were staring at each other, their eyes slightly shaking the way they did when someone was searching something on someone else's face.