Self-Restraint
It hurts.
Pain, he learnt long ago, makes children of us. It forces grown men to cry out for their mothers; it strips everything else away, until only the most basic, most animal part is left, as incoherent and helpless and savage as an infant.
It's a lesson he'd forgotten, that first time he lost himself. But now the new him is uncovering it again, recoiling in anger and disgust at the discovery even as he acknowledges its truth.
And all the while the boy who died on the battlefield a lifetime ago is weeping, it hurts, it fucking hurts.
At first the chafe of rope against skin was an irritant; a biting, scratching discomfort that he'd resigned himself to, as to the chair. Now it barely registers. Everything else, every nerve, is burning too fiercely for that. Even so he's being deafened, by the dull thud of music as it reverberates through the chair's base, by the fireworks still going on, though the room's soft lighting stays constant. Part of him is afraid that the din, like the burning, is internal- just the chemical misfires of a deprived physiology, like a brain starved of oxygen. His feet are skidding on the floor as he tries to find a purchase, and though he can't see his hands, he can feel the strain against his shoulders as his body jackknifes.
"Watch it. You'll have your arms off next."
Carl has drawn up the piano stool and is sitting by his right elbow, legs crossed, the tray with the pitcher of water on the floor in front of him. When there's no reply he gets up, kneels down to check the knots by the legs of the chair, and nods, like an approving schoolmaster. Mitchell has a sudden flash of him, in the lounge of the Randolph Hotel- when was that, '87, '88?-, teaching Hetty the opening bars to the Für Elise. That same, abstracted look, that same half-smile at a job well done. Carl's gift is in making everything look natural, from piano-playing to the seamless reconciliation of mortal and monster. Mitchell envied his composure then, and he envies it now.
There are footsteps, and suddenly Dan is hovering by the doorway, uncertain, a clean towel draped over one arm. Through the half-real noise Mitchell listens to him breathe; to the low, damp hiss of air as it leaves his throat, filled with so much life and warmth that it makes his scalp prickle. He pictures himself, drowning in that warmth; taking it in, mouthfuls, lungfuls of it, hot fresh fading warmth to stop the shivering.
"Hey. Eyes front."
Carl's voice is firm but gentle as he takes hold of Mitchell's chin, turning his head back towards the piano at the far end.
Mitchell laughs. Desperate, incredulous.
"How...how can you do it? How can you- hold him and not...not..."
The other vampire lets go and moves for the jug of water.
"Because if I- did, it wouldn't just be him. I'd have murdered myself."
The glass is pressed to Mitchell's mouth.
"Be dawn soon. You should try to get some sleep."
"I can't."
In the street below someone shouts. Prosit Neujahr!
"Try."