There's only one more chapter after this! :O
Anyway, I already stated this on my profile, but for those who haven't seen it yet, I have my idea for the next fanfic! I don't want to give away a lot yet, so all I'm going to say is this: Yes, Alois will be in it. Yes, it will be in the modern era. So, stay tuned for that when Nevermore is over because I plan on starting it right away.
Nevermore
Chapter 29: A Living Grave
Alois/Claude
Claude's POV
He was his own rival,
And I was in turn, liable.
His highness was in the midst of a nightmare. I could tell by the way he shook and the manner in which his breaths harnessed his whole body, rocking it from side-to-side in his sleep. His pale fingers wrapped around the sheets that were spread across him, encasing the silky material in the palms of his sweating hands. His fair hair dove from his forehead at one rumble, and then returned at the next.
Usually, I would simply wait it out to see if he would ease back into a gratifying state of slumber by himself and without waking, but I would always have to rouse him from his terrors. They were something that he couldn't escape by himself. It just wasn't like him.
Sometimes he would even call for me, obviously searching through Dreamland to spot my face. His pleas for my presence tended to get strained and desperate, and I truly felt for him every time, which was a brand new thing I had been getting used to. To feel anything must've been a travesty.
Nonetheless, my little prince need me once again.
I tried just calling his name at first. In miniscule rasps, I spoke into his ear. This seemed to intensify his panic because he grabbed the front of my tailcoat with one hand and buried the other one further into the sheets, stratching at them all the while. I raised my voice ever-so slightly, but that only sent him deeper into his trepidation.
It was like he knew I was there, heard that I was there, but couldn't seem to find me anywhere.
So, I began shaking him lightly, continuing to call his name. His breathing hitched for a moment, then he let out a low squeal. I wondered what could scare him so much.
I shook him harder then and used a more assertive voice. His eyelids forced themselves down, and I wasn't nearly ready for the ear-splitting scream he let out. Caught off-guard by this, it dawned on me that his naturally stubborn ways were keeping him from waking up. It was either that, or he was so afraid of something that he couldn't even awake.
Neither of those things mattered, though, because now he was screaming more and tossing more, and I decided to pick him up and take him into my arms. Maybe if he felt secure and physically felt that I was there, he would wake up.
However, this didn't work at all. This nightmare really had him trapped. Honestly, I could not think of anything else to do except to shock him in reality.
I stood with him in my arms and exited the room. In the hallway, it was pitch black to the point where even I was having trouble seeing. I somehow managed to navigate through the darkness and into the bathroom. Setting fragile, trembling Alois down against the tub, I started to remove his clothes, which I had no desire to get wet, so they absolutely had to go.
Once his skin was bare, I set him in the tub and turned on the water. He had to be held up due to his erratic state of being. I let the water run for awhile.
Alois had never had a nightmare this bad before. He had never been so petrified by something that couldn't literally touch or capture him. I could only imagine what he was seeing under his closed eyelids. It was always about his past, always about his brother, old man Trancy, or his parents. This time, if he was indeed flashing back to those horrible moments in his life, then it was hitting him hard. It was really getting to him.
Once the water in the tub was high enough, I turned it off and moved his shivering body lower until the only thing not submerged by the water was his face. He was still alarmed by terror unknown to me, but had not yet awoken. There was only one option left.
I took a deep breath, thinking of how he'd either freak out at me for doing such a thing, or how he'd utter love for the lengths I was going through to save him from himself. Resting my hands on his shoulders, I forced his features under the water.
As soon as I did so, his eyes sprung open, and he gained control of his body. I pulled him up from the water, hoping that he wouldn't think I was attempting to drown him.
He was coughing out water and clutching onto my arm with one hand. I brushed his soaked hair away from his foggy eyes, waiting for him to regain himself and either throw something at me or kiss me.
He did neither when his struggled breaths began to flow regularly from his lungs. I started to empty the water from the tub while he remained planted right there, his neck craned forward and staring at the bottom of the contraption. He said nothing, did nothing except hug his knees to his chest in a solitary state.
Once all the water was gone, my attention averted back to his highness.
"You were having a bad dream. There was no other way to wake you."
He nodded, seeming to understand and still looking like he was lost in another dimension.
Silence was all I heard until I deicided to speak up again.
"I must get you back to bed. Your energy has to be depleted. Here." I went to pick him up from his position, but he pushed my arms away, uttering a harsh, "Please!" I had never heard that word said with such distaste before. I also didn't comprehend what he meant by it.
Maybe he meant to say, "Please! Leave me alone." Either way, I couldn't leave him anywhere by himself. He was capable of the craziest things. I could come back in an hour later, and he'd probably have cuts all down his wrists. I absolutely did not want that happening. So, I tried to coax him out of his withdrawal again.
"Alois-"
"I love you, Claude." His voice wobbled like a circus performer on a tightrope.
"I know." There was no other response I could think of, and quite frankly, I was far more set on getting him to bed so that he wouldn't be extremely cranky in the morning.
"My empire's gone."
His words surprised me to the point where I thought I had heard him wrong.
"Beg pardon?"
"My empire is gone." Alois straightened himself for a moment, then leaned towards me, his hands firmly holding grip onto the side of the tub. "Claude, there is nothing left!"
"Calm down, Alois. Time will tell what is earned and what is given back."
"Time won't tell shit, Claude! I'm no prince anymore! I'm not royalty... not that I even was in the first place!" He was yelling now, aggravated by everything and fuming at his losses.
"You are still royalty. Wanted or not, you are still a regal master of London."
"Then where's my crown? My beautiful home? All the things I took for granted everyday?"
I couldn't give him any answers because he seemed to already have them. It was a horrible thing to even think of... everything being taken away before he even knew it. It wasn't something that we could've planned for. It wasn't something that gave any notice at all. It was, in this case, fate.
"Claude, I can't live like this." I sensed the agony, the torment in his voice, but I had to seem unaffected. I was the rock in his life, the only solid thing keeping him from giving in completely. I couldn't plummet along with him.
"You must. We must."
"I can't, and I won't, and don't even say that I'm searching for the easy way out because I'm not! Claude, there are two things that I want and need... only two, and those things are you and to be invincible. You can grant me these things, can't you, Claude?"
"I suppose so, but trust me, prince, there's nothing easy about life after death."
"I told you that I'm not looking for anything easy... just possible."
There was a short silence filled with intense glares and fierce contortions of the face. He was serious, and it showed very evidently.
"Are you asking for immortality?" I finally spoke, brushing away my own hair from orbs of gold, seeing him in a better light now.
"Yes!" Alois was all too eager to reply, his hands pushing him out of his sitting position and onto his knees. He grabbed for me, and I let him have me.
"Are you asking for a true forever?"
"Yes!" He pulled me closer, and his nose touched mine.
"Are you... begging?" I almost equivocated, not sure if he'd slap me across the face for using such a word about him. After all, Alois Trancy's biggest duplicity to himself was pleading, demanding, or any other form of begging.
Tears were forming in his bright eyes, causing them to become dull. I inwardly frowned, wanting to see the doorway to his soul more clearly. I couldn't let him cry.
"Yes, Claude!" He was considerably close to crying. Considerably. "I'm begging, Claude! I'm begging you!"
"Alois-"
"Do you love me?" I already knew that it was a rhetorical question.
The words roughly rolled off of his tounge, stinging my eyes and offending my being. I mean, if I didn't love him, and if he didn't know that I did by now, then maybe he was too far gone like I had thought before. Well, the fact of the matter was that he was trying to prove a point... after all.
"Yes, Alois." I showed him how genuine I was being by softening my sharp features and making my voice smoother so that he would realize that I wasn't kidding; I really did love him, and it wasn't a lie.
Then he said those words I was dreading, asked me that thing I was sure would paralyze me for good. I had the urge to cover my ears and be selective about what I heard.
"Then make me a demon."
The blonde was staring daggers at me, mouth morphed into a pout and fists tightening over the tub's side. He was quivering, cold, and determined, his tears finally spilling over and splashing silently onto the marble floor below us.
"Alois, I can't hurt you." Honesty was indeed the best policy in this case.
"Every minute you waste just sitting there and doing nothing is hurting me!" He took his reddened fists and started banging them against my chest. I caught his arms and held them in place, stopping him. He became ever-so frustrated with me, and I couldn't blame him.
"You know what you're asking for, don't you? You're asking to have a completely different life than you had in the past or that you have now. You're asking, Alois, to be an animal."
"So be it."
"Are you sure?"
"I mean what I say! Besides, what kind of life is this? If I'm not going to be a prince ever again, then why dwell on those facts?" True.
"Well, I'm not exceptionally keen on this yet." I fixed my glasses.
"You were desperate once, Claude! You hollered for the same thing I desire now: life!"
"You're not dying, Alois. There are no contusions, cuts, or deathly wounds on you. Your skin is porcelain, perfect, and san a few minimal scars, you are just as you should be. You are not dying."
"I am dying! Can't you see? I want to be like you, Claude... untouchable by humans and unerasable by fate. Please..." The heir trailed off, his head sinking along with his mood, his body, and... everything.
No length of being relentless had changed my opinion on his desicion. It wasn't him becoming a demon that I was so worried about; it was the thought of him having to go through everything I went through that injected the uncertainty I had into this situation. There was a significant amount of apprehension and a heavy burden that was now deciding to plant its roots on my shoulders.
In the end, however, I only saw one solutuion to multiple problems. I'd have to give in, accept my master's choice, and realize that this really would be the best thing for him... because it was, and there was no stopping the inevitable.
So, I lifted Alois, dressed him in a robe, and I simply stood there holding onto him. He was the only thing I truly did not want to let go of since my life back in the century of my birth.
We were in the hallway then, my steps slow on purpose.
"I want to be reborn outside... so that you won't have to scrub my blood from the carpet." He looked up at me, fear flying through orbs of a delightful color. I had a short and unimportant second thought that I was doing the wrong thing... but for Alois and his sake (all his sake), I had to convince myself that I was, in fact, doing the right thing.
His wish was my command, so we were soon outside.
The weather was fair, the sun still waking up from its slumber (in our eyes), and there was no denying that this day was lovelier than any other. Alois made small comments about the pulchritudinous dawn as I carried us both to the water's edge.
The clear water that brought us to this isolated place would be taking him away... just for a moment, but that moment would kill us both. It would be one of those solicitous times where we'd have, for a sliced second, skepticism. We were bombarded with "what-ifs".
I put him down, sat down myself, and let him climb onto my lap.
"Claude," Alois tangled his hands in my hair and was giving me a shaken look, "will it hurt?"
"Yes." I wrapped an arm around his waist. "Do you still want this?"
"I've never wanted something more in my life."
"Alright." I lifted my free hand up to my teeth and pulled the white glove away. Wouldn't want to stain it.
I ran my hand down his chest, the robe gradually falling from one of his small shoulders and leaving an open space of pale skin. I moved my hand to the opening of his exposed chest and pointed my fingers, bracing for a beautiful murder.
"Make me a demon."
His words sprinted through my mind once more... once more...
"Make me a demon."
I almost hesitated because I felt my chest contort... twinge even, and all I could think was, "You were right, little prince. A heart can ache because I'm experiencing it right now."
I felt the air leave him. I felt the air leave myself. We were a mess, a heap of nothing but tension and treachery, and my teetering hand was trembling, and Alois kept begging me to be gentle... and a thousand things were running through my head and dancing like the blonde would at times, saying in a cadent voice, "Olé!"
"Olé..." I mumbled, far too low for Alois to hear. "Olé..."
Unlike demonic beings before me, the soul I was intending on devouring...
... was instead going to be the soul I changed once and for all... for eternity.
