Category: Slash, Pre-"Underworld" movie universe, probable series
Pairing: SLASH - Nathaniel/Rigel
Rating: R
Summary Long before a certain fateful night in the city, two vampires find devotion and trials of their own, together.

"Golden October Declining"
by ingrid

He walks into the room, still wet from the rain ... still flushed from the hunt.

It's only been a few hours since death was dealt to a lone Lycan we found curled up and snarling in the cemetery, right on the outskirts of the mansion grounds.

Smart creature. It was one of the last places we'd ever look, practically in our own backyard.

Rigel dealt the final blow. I was closer, but stood back and let him have it. I knew Selene would be furious that she'd been denied the kill and this made a small, petty, part of me glad.

We often hunt together, Rigel, Selene and I. While I love Rigel with all that I am, Selene I could live without, since Rigel's affections become ... confused ... when she is near.

But she is not here now. She is back in the dojo, firing her gun at the whitewashed walls, glaring at the invisible wolves that haunt her. The hunt never ends for her and as fond as Rigel is of her even he enjoys a rest once in a while.

I would rest all the time if I could, with Rigel writhing in my arms, his silkblack hair slipping through my fingers. Spend every moment caressing his body with trembling hands, making him cry out with pleasure all night and day if he was so inclined but ...

"This coat is ruined, I think," he says quietly, carefully draping his drenched leather overcoat over a centuries-old chair that is still younger than he is.

"I can procure one of those yellow ones for you," I jest. "What are they called again? Rain slickers? With a pair of rubber galoshes to match."

Rigel's lips quirk into a smile. "I should be quite a sight in those. The Lycans will die of laughter."

"Whatever works," I tease. I lean back and prop my feet onto our shared desk. Rigel has his coffin placed here in my room, along with all his earthly belongings, mostly for convenience as the mansion is crowded and privacy is only for the more privileged among us.

Selene has her own chamber, but I think that's because no one wants to share one with her and her extraordinary dourness. Except for our intrepid Regent ... Kraven.

And Rigel. But he's here with me and I must force her from my thoughts or we shall both become obsessed with her.

Rigel in his infatuation I, in my jealousy.

"Sit down. Rest now, after a job well done," I command and Rigel obeys, sinking into a plush armchair, leaning over to rub his beautiful face with his hands.

I rise and fetch the decanter, pouring him and myself a few ounces of blood into a delicate goblets.

Unable to help myself, I lean down and kiss the silky top of his head before handing him the blood. "Let us toast a hunt well met." I raise the goblet. "To you, my Rigel, the finest death dealer I've ever known."

He sputters a little against the glass. "You mustn't joke while I'm drinking, Nathaniel."

"I do not joke. I am, dare I say it, deadly serious"
Soulfully, he stares up at me, a tiny fleck of blood clinging to his upper lip. How I long to lick it off for him but it is gone in an instant with a delicate touch of his tongue.

"I think others would disagree with you," he says mildly. "I can't say that I agree with you, but ... thank you for the compliment. I know you mean well." He puts the goblet down and his bright eyes meet mine. "Enough of such talk. The hunt is through and we have the rest of this night free. What would you like to do?"

What would I like to do, I muse? What wouldn't I like to do with ... to ... my Rigel, but he refuses lovemaking right after a successful hunt, claiming it might ruin his chances of ever having another.

It's some odd superstition of his, carried over from his mortal life, where he was a knight bound to some long dead Queen, winning great battles for her for little or no praise.

It was his job, that's what he claims. But I know the memory wounds him still. Once, almost a century ago, we chanced to pass the nearby ruins of this old Queen's castle and he stared at them for long minutes, his violet eyes so cold they made me shiver.

"I killed well for you, my Lady," he muttered in German beneath his breath. "Oh, how I killed for you."

He would have died for her too, or so others have told me. Instead he was sired right on the battlefield, brought to immortality by a vampire lurking amongst his Lady's enemies as he lay gasping and bleeding to death in his armor. His sire must have seen something in him, a warrior too valuable to lose to the grave, better used as a soldier in our eternal war with the Lycan filth.

I didn't hear this story from his lips. Rigel never speaks of his siring, but gossip winds its way around the mansion like blood being passed from lip to lip. I still don't know who that vampire was who gave Rigel to us, but I thank them silently, especially on nights like these where my immortality is given meaning.

I can easily live forever, if he is by my side.

"We can watch something from the laptop. There might be a good vampire movie on," I suggest, enjoying his grimace of distaste.

"Ech. The ones they make these days aren't worth even an hour of an immortal's lifetime. I only like the first ones they made. With Bela Legosi. He would have made a good death dealer," Rigel muses. "Too bad no one turned him."

I laugh. Such an absurd notion, put forth so seriously. Rigel's humor is much drier than my own, more obvious, jests. "I think the world might have begun to wonder why the fellow was making movies when he was a hundred and fifty years old, no?"

Rigel smiles. Sometimes the classic planes of his face are too sharp, too perfect, but a smile softens his features to the point where nothing is left but sweetness. "Forget watching anything. What books do you have? I know you have something hiding here that you'll read aloud to me. Come, dearest Nate, read to me."

I ponder this only for a second before pulling out my current favorite from the desk drawer. "Are you sure you'd like me to read to you"
"Oh, yes, please. You know how much I enjoy hearing your books."

It's true. He does enjoy me reciting books to him, for like some vampires who lived their mortal lives during times when illiteracy was the rule rather than the exception, Rigel cannot read.

I have a sneaking suspicion he could be taught how to in a very short time, just as he learned how to handle complicated weaponry and his beloved cameras, but I also have surmised he enjoys this ritual of ours more, the intimate time spent together curled up with a good book.

Opening the book, I recline on the couch, making room for Rigel to cuddle close next to me. We arrange ourselves so that he is stretched out beside me, his head is on my shoulder and he watches intently as I open a new chapter, watching my face as I begin to read.

"Here, let us stand, close by the cathedral. Here let us wait. Are we drawn by danger? Is it the knowledge of safety that draws our feet..."

There is no news of any Lycans on the prowl, so we are reduced to patrolling the city night after dull night.

Rigel doesn't seem to mind walking through the unruly crowds of mortals. He carries his camera and sometimes snaps pictures of the endless pairs of teenage girls who gawk and giggle at him, their lips and eyes ringed with dusky black kohl, their hair streaked with bright stripes colored pink and green..

They often follow him and I through the streets, thinking we do not notice as if we couldn't tell they were shadowing us from a mile away. Most of the time we will simply jump to the building ledges above their heads and watch as they pass by below us, confused, or sometimes, if he is a humorous mood, Rigel will force me to stop and talk to them.

Occasionally, they ask what he does for a living and he tells them, quite plainly, he's a vampire.

Their mouths drop and then they shriek with laughter. "Vampires are so nineties, dude," this particular pair says. "Zombies are much cooler."

"We've fallen out of fashion to a cadre of rotting corpses," I mutter. "How depressing."

Rigel nods, biting his lip with mirth. "Not only must one be undead these days, but unwashed as well."

"You guys are weird," one of the girls says. She nudges her friend, who giggles. "Seriously, what are you? Where do you work? We can hang out there with you sometime, if you like."

"I don't think you'd like our work," Rigel says. "It's rather messy. And bloody."

A memory of our last kill, the Lycan we had to practically behead in order for it to stay dead, flashes before me. Rather messy and bloody, indeed.
"Oh," the girl replies, her nose winkling. "Are you butchers?"

"You are very perceptive," I say, tugging on Rigel's sleeve, having no more patience for these little mortals. "We are butchers. Now, if you'll excuse us ..."

The whisper to each other. One girl glares at us indignantly. "Meat is MURDER!" she spits. They stalk away, arm in arm. "Murderers."

Rigel looks bewildered. I think I'm about to hurt myself from holding my laughter inside. "Meat is murder?" he wonders. "What "
"Don't ask, Rigel," I say, pulling him into my arms for a quick kiss. "This is from ones who think zombies are 'way cooler' than us."

"But zombies like meat," he says dryly. He shrugs before strolling through the next alleyway with me. "Maybe we ishould/i strive to be more like them."

"The coven's clothing budget will lower considerably. We'll just have to rip what we have."

Rigel laughs in reply. He climbs up to a high ledge, then another and I follow until we are on a rooftop of some old building, stone gargoyles adorning its crown.

The entire city is laid out before us in glittering lights. Rigel looks over it, filled with wonder while I stare at him, awed by his beauty.

Quietly, he takes my hand and it feels warm, strange for a vampire, but not for my Rigel.

He is warmth personified. He is all the things I crave more than a Lycan's death...

More than blood.

"Let us go home," he says finally, meeting my eyes hungrily, reading the burning desire that lurks within them. "I am thirsty."

"I am too." Leaning in, I capture his lips with mine. They are so soft, the slide of his tongue against mine is warm and sweet. I feel whatever blood there is in me burn and demand possession.

He moans against my mouth and we must hurry back, lest I take him right there on some rooftop within the sight of mortals.

I pull away reluctantly. "Home. Now," I grind out, pulling him to the roof's edge.

We jump down lightly and race back to the mansion, a pair of darting wraiths holding hands through the darkness.

We run until we find ourselves back in our room, already out of our coats. Desperately, we try to remove the rest of our clothing without breaking our embrace.

I can feel the ancient blood rising in me, along with the human craving that echoes what I once was. My fangs are already sharp and showing, as sure a sign of desire as there ever was.

Rigel's eye teeth have turned as well, filling me with the pleasurable knowledge that our affliction is a shared one. Mating between vampires is a brutal event, a pair of predators fighting for dominance over the other until one submits and the other tastes blood.
We, unlike many of our peers, trade off on our place in the mating, but tonight, Rigel is going to be mine.

All mine.

I push him down onto the couch and he hisses at me, before ripping my shirt in half, destroying it. He lunges up and bites one of my nipples, not overly hard, but hard enough to draw a droplet of blood.
Slowly he licks at it, smearing the blood in tiny circles and I nearly fall over at the pleasure this causes. Still, vampire pride is at stake, and I pin his hands over his head and hold him there, watching intently as he tries to escape.

Snarling, he thrashes violently for a few seconds before conceding, just barely.

I look down on him in awe, watching his chest rise and fall. Eyes flashing, teeth bared, dark hair mussed he's truly the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen in five centuries of life.

Slowly, Rigel turns his head aside and bares his neck to me, its long, pale curve inviting me to lose myself forever in his submission.

By submitting so, he has enslaved me and I can't resist sinking my teeth into the throbbing pulse beneath his skin. Hot blood erupts into my mouth, drips down my chin and I drink deeply, crimson bursts exploding behind my closed eyes.

This is better than any human orgasm, even though we can feel something similar to those on occasion. This is more than that, truly a "little death", one we can relive again and again until .
"Nathaniel," Rigel gasps desperately. My mouth is still clamped to his neck; I'm still drinking. "Too much, beloved."

Shocked, I pull away. The holes in Rigel's neck close upon release but the blue-tinged paleness of his skin, so resembling the pallor of death, remains.

Immediately, I slice my own wrist open with a small blade I always keep close for just such a purpose. I hold the bleeding vein to Rigel's mouth and he drinks delicately, until some of his color returns.

When he is finished, I kiss his forehead tenderly. "Forgive me, love. I became carried away."

"Nothing to forgive," he whispers, his lips stained bright red. "It is our way, after all. To drink until nothing is left."

"I should be better than 'our way', especially with you, Rigel."

Mournfully, he shakes his head. "No one mortal, vampire nor even Lycan can be anything other than what they are. There is no higher standard than being true to your nature. And we are killers, my Nate. Nothing more and certainly, nothing less."

His words disturb me. I lie down and press my ear to his chest, listening to the muted sounds of eternal life flowing through him. I can feel him stroking my hair, whispering sweet nonsense in Latin and German while I drift off into a fitful doze, my dreams full of blood and haze.

to be continued? Hmmm.Thank you for reading.
If anyone would like to read more, let me know. I have more ideas for this universe.