《THE COUNT》

the duel

Zayn walked into the dim room,
where the only light source came from a dying fire.
It was cold as well, but he was used to it.
It was the wintertime anyway, always cold.
This room was all too familiar.

Zayn walked into the room with his swagger walk,
you could the jiggling of his keys in his pocket.
He stared at the room, it was a very large room.
Not very neat, Zayn thought very much about it.
The room was more like of a library in his mind.
Books were everywhere,
scattered everywhere in the room.
The books were reaching the ceiling on the shelves,
that covered the walls.

Though books could either be on the ground or not,
they were everywhere in sight.
Many by authors Zayn could not pronounce their first name.
Languages Zayn never heard of.
In fact, this room had so many books that Zayn had ever seen.
He was interested, but not in reading the books.
He liked to look through, flip through any book that appeared to him.

The only thing that could now be heard once Zayn stood still,
was the fireplace and the flipping of pages in a book.
Zayn smirked,
his friend was in this room.
He started to walk again,
soon he saw the shadow of a man.

Zayn stared at the shadow,
seeing the shadow of glasses and messed hair.
He scoffed quietly,
how long had his friend been in here?
Zayn didn’t know,
he only knew that it could be for days or hours.

As Zayn walked forward to the desk,
he saw the figure of his friend.
The man was slouched over,
reading a book with books piled beside him.
A bottle of wine was set atop over a large pile of papers.
Zayn laughed,
the poor man couldn’t control his drinking to save his life.

Zayn saw his friend,
looking half dead.
He walked toward him,
it seemed like the man didn’t even notice.

“Good evening, Jason.” Zayn spoke finally after a long moment of silence.
There, in front of Zayn, sat Count Jason McCann.
The man who married his sister in a drunken accident.
Everyone in London knew it was all just a drunken mistake.
For Jason had yet to marry and so did Selena.
It was his own fault,
he could not yet control his drinking binges.
“Studying?” Zayn asked, sitting down on Jason’s desk.

Jason, the older man, glared at Zayn.
Zayn had grabbed the bottle of wine off his papers and swung the bottle in front of his eyes.
Jason looked away, back at the many books and started to read once again.
“Yes.” Jason answered simply, not looking at the man.
“How was the opera?” He answered, trying to intimidate the vocals of a singer.
None laughed, but both found it amusing.

“Lovely,” Zayn answered.
He smiled, swaying his legs. “Justin Bieber was there.”
He tapped his foot and paid no attention to Jason’s annoyed expression.
Zayn saw Jason’s face soften when he brought up the topic of Count Justin Bieber.
It didn’t bother him, but instead,
calmed the man.
Zayn saw it was an affectionate spot.

“Oh?
Dear Andrey’s betrothed?” Jason asked, raising his eyebrow.
Zayn nodded, smirking.
He knew it was the best spot to speak to Jason.
Jason smiled genuinely,
“I have known his family for years,
and long carried affection,
for him.” Jason was almost flooded with memories of the Young Count—even younger.

Jason was present during the first days of the newborn Count.
When Justin was maturing,
he flirted with older men and Jason was one of the men.
Justin felt like dancing once with Jason at 12 years,
it almost set off more engagements.
It was decided that Justin was in love with Boris.

Zayn nodded once again, “Yes….
Charming.” He almost said in disgust.
It didn’t send off an alarm for Jason,
he was too busy reading the book laid in front of him.
Zayn knew it wasn’t going to take much to get replies and favors from this man.
He was too busy to notice anything serious.
It was all too good.