Rated R for gore, Godric/Eric intimacy, power play.

The white marble room was a perfect circle, moonlight slicing a line through the oculus of the dome far overhead. The floor was a bloodbath. The vampires, half clothed, smeared in gore, lounged about post-frenzy pre-orgy, hooded eyes sliding across the room, making lazy promises that might be kept once their blood-sated limbs stirred from repose. The air was heavy with the scent of fresh death, human bodies scattered on the floor like broken dolls, couples laughing privately, engaged in their own webs of physical intrigue.

It was not a sound that interrupted the heavy intimate atmosphere. It was not a cloud casting a silver shadow across the moonlit blood on the floor that signaled the shift. It was merely an invisible ripple of tension, a chill down the spines of the vampires nearest the figure that had appeared, silent and barefoot, in the doorway. He was not imposing, threatening, or fearful. It was simply the magnitude of his presence, spreading open like wings in the sudden ensuing silence, blanketing the vampires assembled in the chamber.

"Children,"

He took the first step down the smooth marble steps. When he spoke, his voice was carefully clipped, filled with as much silent meaning as his spoken words. "Endlessly engrossed in your own primitive appetites."

The silence, broken, yielded to dissonant murmurs. A tall black-haired vampire stood up, with toasted skin, and woven charms around his neck. "This is my nest, you have no right to be here. Get out or prepare to meet your death."

"You have something of mine, and I have every right to reclaim my property. I have read your laws." He spoke carefully, and as he did, his eyes found Eric.

At the center of the melee, Eric's fingers compulsively dropped the torn body in his grasp, and the skull made a sickening crunch as Godric's eyes met his. A short battle between the norseman's pride, and his shame ensued. He lowered his head, brows knit, blood splattered up his forearms, and gore glistening down his chin and bare chest.

"Yours?" The dark skinned vampire's temper had risen, as he strode towards Eric.

"Then you should have kept him better restrained. He came here on his own. And you come in, a stranger in our lands, with insults." In a moment, he was facing off with the smaller vampire, too close for courtesy, his broad shoulders and hands an overwhelming contrast to Godric's petite figure.

Godric raised a hand, fingers spread, in the space between them, a hair's breadth away from his skin.

"You will step down." Pale eyes slid upwards, slowly, to meet his.

Power flared between them, a cold flame. Godric drew a slow breath, as if pulling that invisible mass inside his body, and the vampire standing before him sunk to one knee, quivering with the effort to resist. The murmurs started again, in a rushed frenzy, as more than a dozen vampires, accustomed to watching their sharp-tempered leader kill even their own kind at only casual grievances, watched him surrender without a fight.

Eric was as still as the marble he was crouched on, eyes still lowered, though from the murmurs, he knew what had happened. It was a power unique to his maker, as far as he had ever seen. The ability to glamour his own kind. Slender fingers brushed against his face, like the brush of moth wings.

"Godric, I… I can explain.."

"Shh. There is no need for wasted words. You will make amends to me. Now go."

The spell in the room was breaking apart, as concern for their leader heated the vampires' outrage. A female, crouched near him, looked up and snarled at Godric. A moment later she had knocked him to the floor. Eric was on his feet immediately, a hand reaching to his waist for the sword that lay discarded, with his shirt and armor, in a haphazard pile across the room. Before he could lunge on her bare-handed, she was already thrown off, crashing into a wall niche across the chamber, the impact shattering a statuary figure, and raining down a cloud of stone.

Godric was standing. Blood smeared across his face from the vampire's clawing hands made bloody stripes across his usual carefully composed expression, a familiar animal viciousness lurking in his eyes.

"Eric. Leave NOW."

The fledgling vampire made a hasty exit. The cool night air was a shock after the heady blood-drenched pulsing warmth of the vampire den. Screams echoed, and his skin prickled. He did not think Godric would kill them all. More likely, he thought, he would make a game of it, letting them attack him and fail until their frenzied anger broke against his immutable strength. Then they would crawl away licking their wounds. Already some of the younger ones had fled from the building. Eric licked his bloody fingers clean thoughtfully, as he watched from the shadow of a nearby pillar.

The sky was starting to have a pale edge of light around it's edges by the time the structure fell totally silent. Godric walked out, at a human speed, though he could sense his progeny's discomfort at the thought of the coming dawn. Godric was so careful with him, usually, Eric was never exposed to the open sky this early in the morning. He felt a trickle of blood creep from his inner ear down the side of his neck. As he was approached, he tried to look both apologetic, and firm. He had disobeyed his maker, yes, but he had a good reason. Godric seemed markedly unconcerned with reasons or excuses as he walked past Eric, towards their daytime retreat. Eric followed.

The silence between them stretched taut like a rope, and made the younger vampire increasingly uncomfortable. He knew Godric was angry. But what if he had been hurt, and wasn't telling him? He was covered in gore, it was hard to tell if any of it was his. And what if he was not just angry, but through with Eric? He could easily decide that the act of rebellion was an unforgivable trespass. That he had crossed some invisible line.

When they approached the doors of the mausoleum they were sharing, on the edge of the city, Eric worried for a moment that Godric would not let him in. The sun was pressing the edge of the sky, clouds edged in rose light. He wondered if he could find another place, safe enough to sleep, without his maker's guidance. He had never tried. Godric had not looked at him since starting off from the temple.

"Godric, please. I am sorry."

Eric touched the smaller vampire's shoulder with the tips of his fingers. When Godric finally turned, to meet his eyes, the viking's bright blue gaze was clouded with worry. Godric's porcelain indifference softened, a little, and he opened the door for Eric.

Exhaling a token breath of relief, Eric stepped through the doorway, and the heavy stone doors closed against the light. In the darkness, Godric frowned slightly, letting the silence unravel.

"….Eric. I am disappointed with you. I brought you here, to the city, to see and learn how cultured vampires conduct their affairs. Rome is the heart of the vampire authority in this age. Instead I find you in a nest of…" He closed his eyes. None of the words he could think of to voice his displeasure did not ring true of himself, hundreds of years ago. Primitive, carnal, uncontrollable, animal, hedonist.

Eric's hands clenched. "They WERE with the Authority." A frown. "Well, a couple of them used to be. The way I hear it, that's the way things are done around these parts, anyway."

Godric's expression shifted minutely, slightly puzzled, slightly dismayed. "Then things have changed since I was last here." His expression was neutral again. "But I am your maker, and I told you to stay close to me. I am known in the inner circles here, even if my visits are infrequent. You are my chosen progeny, and I had hoped to present you with the correct decorum."

"I don't think you know enough about the decorum of Rome, then."

A snarl, and Godric's hand was wound in Eric's long blonde hair, wrenching his head back as he gasped, hands going up to defend himself, several moments too late, then slowly lowering as he remembered not to. A trickle of blood escaped his nose, and his eyes widened slightly, surprised to be bleeding, when he wasn't injured. A dull pain was starting behind his eyes, and in his stomach, like the blood he had been drinking tonight was starting to churn sour.

Godric's eyes closed, and he let him go, sharply, without speaking, rising to pace back and forth the stone floor of the dark mausoleum, his footsteps barely echoing.

Eric frowned, and rubbed his neck. "I have no wish to be a prize warhorse of yours to show off to your vampire equals. You once told me that you wanted to see the desires of my heart brought to lay at my feet. Well. I want companionship." Godric stopped pacing, and looked at him, something like pain in his eyes.

Eric shook his head, fingers rubbing his temples. It was hard to think with that dull pain growing in his skull. Was Godric doing this to him? He had never experienced it's like, as a vampire. "No.. I don't mean.. that I wish to replace you, as my companion. But… I do not wish to live in near-solitude, even with you. I wish.."

The smaller vampire's fingers brushed his face, turning it up to look at him, closely. "You wish you had a nest?"

Eric hesitated, then nodded.

Godric sighed, and pulled Eric to sit, on the cold, carved slab of stone covering one of the graves. He sat beside him. "Then I will make it so. But that is not the nest for you. They are little better than wild boars, rutting and goring and eating anything that crosses their path, with no discrimination. Everything in excess ruins the joy of anything. I would teach you to be an elegant predator, Eric. Who finds joy in the subtleties of the hunt and kill. Who understands that restraint at the outset sometimes yields a sweeter harvest at the reaping."

He smiled, and ran a lock of Eric's wheat blonde hair though his fingers. "Your desires are mine. When they are not born of childish and human impulse. You must not disobey me."

Eric nodded, mutely, captivated by the touch of his maker, so delicate and precise, possessed of such hidden vicious strength. More blood trickled from his nose, and eyes, and he flinched, confused.

"Why am I bleeding, Godric..? It hurts…" Eric's fingers came away from his face with fresh blood. Godric leaned forward and licked it from his cheeks, the tip of his tongue soft against Eric's skin, his hands braced on Eric's broad shoulders.

"Because the sun is rising. It will get worse."

Eric's eyes widened, as Godric leaned closer to lick the blood off of the curve of his jaw, where it had trickled from his ear. Not 'could get worse', but 'will get worse.' His maker had chosen his punishment. Godric was always subtle with these things, but when it was clear, there was no escaping it. Eric had always, to this point in his vampiric existence, been sleeping like a baby, blood-sated and content, as the sun broke the horizon. He shivered. Godric kissed his cheek, his lips leaving a red stain.

By nightfall, Eric was exhausted. The dull creeping pain that accompanied the bleeds had worn down the strong forged edge of his will to fight. Flat on his back, streaks of blood down his face and neck, he lay mostly naked, with Godric curled on top of him. Hours later, the older vampire had started to bleed as well. Eric, concerned, had promised to stay up and complete his punishment, if Godric went to ground. But his maker had stayed put, and if he suffered the same as Eric, he hid it well.

His fingertips touched Eric's eyelids as the sun slid below the horizon, and the air started to cool with the coming of night. The pain rolled back like a wave, blissful relief, a loosening of tight-wound muscles.

Eric wrapped his arms around Godric, strong enough that the smaller vampire would have to use at least some effort to pry him off. He was looking for redemption, though he knew, infallibly, it was already there.

"Eric.."

Godric was smiling, though bloody and tired himself. There was unmistakable love in his voice. Their eyes met, and Godric leaned forward, pressing his lips to Eric's, the first taste of Godric's blood that Eric had been allowed, even though Godric had been bleeding out the same as him.

The kiss turned hungry, and Eric's fangs slid out, locked in a vicious and tender battle with Godric. It was Godric who broke away first, his hands spread on Eric's chest, pressing him flat to the stone slab of the tomb. There was a familiar glitter in his eyes.

"Let's hunt."

Eric's grin broke like moonlight through storm clouds, guileless and strong, and full of wonder.