Like a Stone That's Been Thrown in the Ocean
He tells himself that it horrifies him, that the vampire has only to hold someone's eyes and forever after own the man or woman behind them. It is unnatural, unheimlich, and if James cannot help but watch – if he cannot but watch, it is because he must be wary of the unknown so that he too does not fall prey to it.
That is all that it is. Truly.
His heart does not beat faster in the vampire's presence, or when it turns its pale eyes toward his. If he is to work with (for) it, it must leave him alone, his mind free and untainted: he is useless otherwise and the vampire, immortal, has scant patience for useless things. James understands this, understands that he is, for the moment, safe, and does not worry himself over things he cannot change. And anyway he can resist that winter-strong mind, has done so already, on the train. And so he does not think about it.
(He remembers, though. Flash of pale eyes in his office, time and space blurring into immovable hands on his head and throat, the whisper-soft touch of lips, teasing... The memory stills him whenever he fails at locking it away, makes him shiver when he sees the vampire drawing another victim to itself.)
Then comes the attack, and silver or no he is a dead man. Except that then he wakes, locked behind silver bars, and the vampire is there to care for him. -To guard him, James thinks, but not as he would guard Lydia; rather, the vampire is angered. It hired him, worked with him and watched him as much as he has watched it: claimed him, first in James's office and again on the train, and before the other vampires, and in countless smaller ways in between, and it is infuriated that the younger vampires laid hand and fang to its property. James realizes this ownership and shudders, knowing that his own opinions have no weight in this matter; he cannot even claim to be capable of defending himself, individually.
But he wonders, after, if he truly broke free on the train, or if he had been allowed to escape. It must have been the former. Mere contemplation of the alternative makes his breath come faster. -Surely it was the former.
James tells himself this over and over and over again, as if repetition will make it true.
And everything comes to a head, and the serum-turned monster is mad, and the only constant is the vampire by James's side. But daylight is coming, too swift, and for some reason he cannot make himself examine he cannot bear that the vampire (Ysidro) should die a second time, that the white hair and skin should burn, and he forces himself beyond what he thought capable – and they escape, and Lydia does, too.
When the monster comes for him, he shoves silver straight into it, sending it screaming into death, and he feels no remorse.
It is over.
He dreams, at night, of the train, of the cold press of a mind stronger than his, and lips teasing against his throat. She knows he dreams, worries for him, but he cannot explain himself to her. And after all, it is over, is it not? The monster is dead and Lydia is safe and the vampire has gone back into the shadow-world, the nightside of London.
It is only that he cannot stop remembering, he tells her, but time mends all things. It will mend that, too.
She is sleeping when he wakes, pale and dark on the bed beside him, lovely. He ought to lie back down, curve around her back with his arm over her waist, but something is pulling him away. The tug draws him to the study, and he can no longer deny the blood singing in his veins, the heavy weight of anticipation tensing in his spine.
The door is open for him. He steps inside.
The vampire is there, waiting for him. "James."
James goes to him. He has no choice (has had no choice since that first evening, here, in his study) – he shivers, wanting, and the world blurs until – there is a hand buried in his air, dragging his head back, and another curled around his hip, and the barest caress of lips against his throat. He moans.
"James," Ysidro whispers, and the weight of the vampire's mind presses him down, down, into darkness.