The fire had been built high before they went to bed, more for the light than the heat. Alexander awoke to sheets and blankets kicked off and his hand upon a bare thigh. Still half asleep-the lovely dream he had been having still tangled with reality-he forgot himself and pulled the pliant body closer to him despite the warmth of the room. He buried his face in the boy's neck, always bared in sleep, top buttons always undone with his tossing and turnings. He gave a playful nip and grazed his teeth over the boy's collarbone. Daniel stirred and protested sleepily. Alexander pulled himself away, trying not to give voice to the whine of protest he felt. He wanted. He had never wanted so badly and as entertaining as the pain of waiting was-the knowledge that when he at last won his prize the delayed satisfaction would make it that much sweeter-it was beginning to wear thin.

He raised his head and rested in on his hand studying the features he had grown to love so well in a matter of weeks: the ever so slightly crooked nose, the straight brow, and the thin lips. Alexander traced over each of these features with a careful finger. He cursed the mating rituals of this world, Daniel's country, for being so slow and ponderous.

Daniel whimpered in his sleep and Alexander withdrew his hand. The Shadow sending its nightly reminders that it wanted the orb returned or another, more meddling, intruder? Alexander could deal with the latter right now.

He debated waking Daniel to tell him he had business downstairs. He didn't want the young man to wake up alone and think that Alexander was neglecting him, but it was rare for Daniel to sleep through the night. If he could finally get a much needed, full night's rest, Alexander didn't want to rouse him.

Alexander slipped from-what he now thought of as- their bed. He grabbed his dressing gown from where he had thrown it and pulled in on as he walked out of their rooms. He had some unfinished and much satisfying business to attend to below his dungeons.

Agrippa, to all appearances, looked like an emaciated corpse. He hung unmoving from the shackles that bound him to the wall, naked and neglected, another forgotten victim in a place that had had its fill of them. Alexander crossed his arms and glared at the jawless monstrosity before him. "I see you've been tampering with my guest's mind again."

The corpse shuddered; Alexander could hear faint laughter in his mind. The corpse raised its head slowly as if that small motion pained it. "I've been trying." He admitted.

"I warned you what would happen."

"And I know you have no intention to follow through on that particular threat. You still need me."

"Do not be so arrogant. Your usefulness ran out years ago."

"Then why do you keep me here? Why don't you just let me die at last?"

"Because I like watching you suffer. Your despair was one of the few things that made my life bearable."

"You always liked to collect the most macabre of trophies. But I fear I am replaced in your affections now. You have a new, less worldly companion to make your life bearable." The telepathic voice was mocking and Alexander bristled at it.

"You flatter yourself."

"Yes, you never wanted me for my physical attractions, and in that I differ from my replacement. To you my mind and my understandings of how this world works were what were most appealing."

"And that much praised mind, the brightest of its age, fell short of my expectations."

Dry laughter. "I told you what you wanted to learn. It's not my fault that it was something you didn't trust."

"My apologies that I was too smart to play the fool in your and Weyer's games."

Agrippa sighed. "I wasn't lying, I wasn't trying to dupe you. You could have been back to your beloved home centuries ago if you could have just trusted someone other than yourself."

Alexander thought of Daniel, thought of a reality where they had never met and a future that would not contain the two of them together. "I think things have worked out satisfactory, regardless."

"Yes, that poor lad. If only you had trusted in Weyer and myself, we could have spared him the misfortune of having met you."

"He would consider himself greatly fortuitous to have met me."

"Because he doesn't yet realize that the fate you have planned for him is akin to my own." The chains clinked in the oppressive gloom of the chamber.

Alexander opened his mouth to protest, but Agrippa cut him off. "Oh yes, I know you intend for his prison to be much more lovelier than mine, a place of silk and sunlight and beauty, but in the end, he'll still be chained in a world not his own to a monster he can't escape."

"I grow tired of you."

"And I, you. Let the boy go. Let it be the one decent thing you have ever done in this world. Give him the orb and free him, both from the Shadow's curse and from your company, your affections." The last word was spat out. "I've seen the boy's mind. I've wandered the halls of it while he dreams and I know he has done nothing to deserve you and what you are making of him."

Alexander smirked. "Do I sense some jealousy, old friend?"

"Ha!"

"Well, thank you for sharing your opinions on the subject of Daniel. I'm afraid I cannot comply to them though and also think that Daniel himself would not be too keen on my following your advice."

"And that is because he has yet to see what lies behind that mask you wear."

"If he can look at this aged façade," Alexander waved a hand over his face, "I think that physical appearance is the least important of the attributes by which he judges people."

"I'm not talking about your face or even your real form, Alexander, I'm talking about the mask you hold over your soul. It's a black, self-serving thing. When Daniel finds out what you really are, what you've been capable of-"

"Then he'll never find it out. Which brings me rather neatly to the purpose of my visiting you at this late hour." Alexander grinned and the mask of his humanity fell away. "Let's stop your meddling in my lover's head, shall we?"

Daniel stared at the rain, cheek pressed against the stone pillar holding up the awning that was keeping him dry. He shivered and thought momentarily about going to his rooms to change into more proper daytime attire, but he didn't want to walk all that way. He didn't want to chance stumbling across Alexander with his concern and brusque well meaning. It was nice to be alone with his thoughts, and for once they seemed to be his own thoughts. The voice that had plagued him in recent weeks had been silent these past few days. At first he thought it was a blessing, but then another idea had occurred to him: what if it meant he had finally accepted his madness? That he had become used to the pain and death he caused every night, had come to accept it? Maybe the voice in his head had been his dying sanity pleading with him to stop, to turn back, before he went past a point of no return.

There was nothing more depressing than a garden in the rain. He should go in, read one of Alexander's many books or help with the shoring up of the castle's walls. "Daniel?"

He pulled away from the cold, comfort of the stone and turned to face Alexander. "Yes? Did you have some need of me?"

"I've been running through the halls to find you." He approached Daniel in quick, long strides.

"Again I ask, did you have need of me?"

Alexander stopped, hands clenching. "I was worried about you."

"Oh." Daniel turned back to the rain and the roses.

"Oh?" He could feel the heat of Alexander behind him and fought the urge to lean back into it, to let the baron warm the chill in his bones. "Don't dismiss me so cavalierly. You've been avoiding me of late and it's driving me mad. I know you've been sneaking into my laudanum cupboard. I can smell it on you even now."

"And what exactly are you concerned I'll do? Go into town and tell the outrider our dirty little secrets?"

"I'm afraid you'll do yourself harm." Daniel closed his eyes, but it made the hurt in the baron's voice more clear. "When you're not in our rooms or in the library the image of you fallen, bleeding comes into my mind and it tortures me. If you call out for me and I cannot answer it, if I stumble across you too late…"

"And what would your solution to this be? Have me tethered to your side at all times like a faithful hound?"

Aged fingers clenched in the fabric of his dressing gown and shook him. "Don't throw my affection for you back in my face."

"I'm sorry."

Alexander tightened his grip when Daniel tried to step away. "That's not good enough. You do not disrespect me."

"Again my apologies."

"Tell me. Tell me all your thoughts. How can I help you if…Just let me help you."

He kept his eyes closed, pain twisting his features. "You can't help me, I was a fool to ever think you could." He evaded the baron's grasp by the expedient gesture of shrugging out of his captured dressing gown. He walked out into the rain, the cold drops drumming against his bare flesh. Closing his eyes, he tilted his face up into it.

A sound from Alexander-a gasp or a sigh- and Daniel wondered if he was offending the baron's sense of propriety, but his friend had seen him nude before, had bathed him and sat on the bed they shared watching him as he changed clothes. No, the man was no prude. He turned and glanced over his shoulder. His dressing gown was twisted in the old man's hands as if he were trying to strangle it. His eyes, those strange eyes… The way they looked at him sometimes, the way they were looking at him now… Like a creature starved. He thought of the voice and its lewd warnings.

"I wish I could wash away all my sins with just this." He held out his arms to the rain.

"Oh Daniel." The wine colored fabric slipped through his fingers and he strode out into the rain.

Daniel turned from him. "Don't."

The baron wrapped his arms around him. He always forgot how tall Alexander was until the man was looming over him. Alexander pulled him against his chest, leaning down to press his cheek against Daniel's. "You have nothing to be cleansed of. You're beautiful."

"I'm hideous." He half-heartedly tried to shake off Alexander.

"And where is this hideousness of which you speak? As I see you now, in my arms, you're perfection. Where is this abnormality, which of your features do you find so ghastly?"

"It's inside of me." The baron's hand slid down his chest and rested over his stomach. The contrast between them was startling; Daniel had become so pale these last few weeks, Alexander's complexion was now darker than his.

"I'll never understand your people's obsession with the soul and the state of it." He splayed his fingers out, covering as much of Daniel's flesh as he could. "I don't think anything as pure as your spirit could be tainted."

"Stop with the empty platitudes. I grow weary of them."

"I have never praised you without meaning it with all of my heart, Daniel. Nor have I ever made you a promise I didn't intend to keep."

"Let me go."

"Never."

Daniel tried to pull away one last time, but was wrenched back. "I am not what you think I am. Please, just let me go back to my rooms."

"And I said I'd never let you go. You grow weary of my compliments, I grow weary of these fits of childish melancholia."

"Childish!" Daniel attempted to elbow Alexander, but couldn't manage it due to how tightly pressed together they were.

"Stop this obstinacy at once." Daniel was spun around; Alexander's hands on his upper arms holding him like bands of iron.

He couldn't meet the baron's eyes, so paid attention to the hectic color in the baron's cheeks, the way the wrinkles darkened when he pulled his lips back in that near snarl, the way his chest was heaving.

"Why don't you hate me? Why do you still call me friend? Why do you…go to such lengths for me?"

"You should know the reason for that by now."

Daniel shook his head. "Stop. The affection you have for me is ill founded I tell you."

"And how could my love for you ever be termed ill founded? I know you Daniel, I know you better than anyone who has ever known you."

Daniel closed his eyes. "You don't know me. Not all of me."

"Then I will with time. It is something I will earnestly look forward to, learning about you."

"Truly?" Daniel tried to sneer, but it came out more of a grimace. "Will you let me tell you a story then? A small sample of what is to come."

"Please." Alexander cradled the back of his head and stepped forward, once again holding Daniel against him.

"When I was a lad there was another boy who lived in my village. He was one of those children that are hulking brutes even before they reach maturity. He terrorized us; even the adults avoided him if they could. He hated me the first time he laid eyes upon me. He called me…effeminate." A soft hum from Alexander and he brushed away the wet hair plastered to Daniel's cheek. Daniel clutched the baron's wrist and held the hand against his face. "He beat me." He whispered into Alexander's palm. "He took…unwholesome satisfaction in it. And I was younger than he and weaker and could do nothing but live day to day with the inevitable shame of it."

"Children are cruel."

"Yes, yes they are. I snapped one day, you know. That day the beating had been especially harsh and I was… already poorly from the previous evening." His father had given him thirty lashes with his belt. "I was lying in the mud of the street, bleeding and broken and something in my mind, the fear perhaps, died in me. As he was kicking me, taking his enjoyment of my pain, my hand found a rock. I fought back for the first time in my life. It felt so good, I couldn't stop myself. I just pounded and pounded and pounded into his face, thrilled that he was the one lying in the muck for once. The other children who had been too afraid to stop it were now cheering me." He fell silent, lost in his memories. Alexander's thumb brushed under his eye. They were so close he could feel the baron's breath on his face.

"He was bed ridden for weeks afterwards. He lost an eye, his cheekbone was smashed and when it healed his face was malformed. Whenever I saw him in the streets I would feel a sense of sick satisfaction. I had won, in the first time in my life, I had won. I knew why he had done it now, that terrorizing. It's such a heady power, to realize that you hold someone's life in your hands, that you aren't the one on the ground. It's a perverse feeling." He met Alexander's eyes. "It's how I feel in the torture chambers now: relief that it's not me in those shackles, joy that with each of their screams I am buying myself another day of life. I'm the strong one for once. When I am down there punishing them for their sins I am as like unto a god as a moral man could be." He smiled and it was a tired thing. The rain hid his tears.

"I'm not anything pure, Alexander. There is nothing of beauty about me. I killed it dead over a decade ago."

"Hush, my love."

"I'm not your love and again I tell you that this fatherly love you feel for me is poorly placed."

Alexander opened his mouth to protest, but Daniel silenced him with a hand placed against his lips. "Please don't. I couldn't bear your kindness another moment. I will do all you ask of me. I won't protest against what we do anymore, no fears to that. But please don't judge me for what it will turn me into."

"I know it's hard for you. I do, Daniel, but once it's all over we'll live the rest of our days in redemption for it. We'll honor the dead with each breath in the sunlight we take, with each smile you give to me, and we will know that their lives weren't given in vain."

Daniel nodded. He let Alexander tuck him under the older man's chin. "Let us get you inside now. A warm bath and a warmer bed is what's called for tonight. And from now on you will not leave my sight."

"Yes, Alexander." His voice was dull, resigned.

Thank you for your patience and the lovely reviews! I hope you like the newest chapter. Again, all comments and critiques are welcome and appreciated!