Nick walked back into the hall, closing the door behind him. It had been a rough ten hours, although he hadn't been able to keep track correctly after a while. It was pretty draining, dealing with a new vampire-especially since Aristotle had made her strong. If Nick made a random person immortal, it gave them no strength. He didn't even know how to muster any intangible force up, to be honest.
Well, in this type of thing. He could do quite a bit with his focus, when he concentrated. He'd seen others do it as well, vampire who had extremely strong faiths. All over the world, in any cult or sect, it seemed one or two vampires had real 'holy' power. They had met with him once, explaining that there were others like him. And that they had taken over the enforcers long ago, making it a group of more 'otherworldly' powered immortals.
But really, if Lacroix made an immortal, he could make them strong. It was a choice, and required a lot of work. He had done it with Nicholas, making him even more powerful than Janette, something she still cursed at him about if she were really angry. That was how he'd found out about it. To feed you slowly with tiny drops of blood, the slower the better, for days and days - that was part of it, he knew. And to make it the hardest, most powerful type of blood to drink-in his case, Lacroix's blood.
Weak, average mortal blood made you weak. Lacroix had spend an extremely long time letting his body fight to adapt, and that long, unconscious struggle had made him incredibly tough. Compared to other immortals his age, he was twice as strong. Even when barely drinking real blood as sustenance. He often reflected ironically that Lacroix's careful making of him was the only reason he was strong enough to fast or drink poorer quality blood.
Aristotle had made this girl, Parker, very strong. He had also unfortunately done it too fast. Instead of taking months upon months like Lacroix had, he'd done it in a rush. The body couldn't handle that type of stress so fast. They had finally got the girl unconscious, but it had taken forever. She was both clever and fast, her mortal life clearing informing her super-powered reflexes and ability to slip away.
The hallway was dark, but there was some light coming from one of the rooms. Lacroix had to be home, then, Nick thought, and took off his coat. He trekked down past the fancy rooms and their quiet elegance. Of course, the only room that didn't fit in was his own. It was nice, though, how Lucien was willing to do it for him. He always let him room be more normal and average than the rest of the eerie, millionaire style design of the rest of his houses all over the globe. Nick got the only un-creepy room in the place, every time. It was like that was his concession to his love of Nicholas, that he would tolerate average style.
Nick had no doubt he thought of it exactly like that.
Lacroix was going to pretend nothing had ever happened, he knew. He would be willing to talk about Divia right about when the Lord Savior came to receive all souls for the final judgment. Nicholas could handle that; Lacroix wasn't the talking, feelings-sharer type. He had never spoken about his mortal childhood, just the military campaign parts of his life. Nick had never asked him, either. It seemed rude.
Someone like him would be hurt by prying questions, not feel valued for the attention. And the other side of the coin was important too, the side where Nicholas had never, never spoken of his time in the Crusades. There were a lot of reasons, but most of them were that Lacroix was not on his side. He was eternally a foreigner in a very real way, a cultist, a non-believer.
And he seemed to know nothing of the secret Christian groups that had existed back then, and what they did.
Lacroix often espoused the belief that there was nothing supernatural in the world, no god or magic or anything. He even said that vampirism was merely a virus that made them superior to mortals. A type of 'positive', incurable sickness. But Lacroix had also never felt power himself, Nick was sure. He could not touch holy objects knowingly.
And that was the key.
Nicholas wasn't proud of it, but he had tested him. If he took a holy piece, and invested it with his focus and prayer, it became a quite lethal weapon. [He had often killed vampires who came after with random objects [a frying pan, once], or bible pamphlets.
Random immortals turned up all the time wanting to either lecture him, insult and physically abuse him, or just kill him. They all wound up dead, and since they attacked when Lacroix wasn't around, he never found out about it.] Nick had taken many different holy objects, both typical and random, and touched them to Lacroix's skin without his knowledge. During sleep, while awake, it didn't matter.
If he didn't know it was there, his quiet internal goodness shone through, and he wasn't harmed. It was only when he knew a cross was there that he would be hurt by it. An interesting complexity, to be sure. It was as if he willed himself to be hurt in that instant, in that moment.
Nicholas couldn't figure it out, but he was sure that eventually? Lacroix would be a big get for god. He passed the last bedroom on the right and went in the final door. Light peeked out through a crack; Lacroix almost never kept doors shut. It was a weird preference of his. Nick walked into his study, a weirdly modern looking room without any Roman-esque touches. He had once said he needed this type of room 'to think in', and couldn't be 'distracted' by any photos; once disallowing Janette to put some framed photos in one of his studies.
He was unique, to be sure. And yet, Nick was glad he'd chosen him. Other immortals had approached him at various points of his life-some saying they were immortal, some seeming to be witches, and a few men who were almost the paradigm of a learned, serious mage. But none of them had meant anything to him. And Lacroix seemed to like feeling as if he'd plucked his little naive Christian from regular life and given him the best gift of all.
The real best gift was just himself, of course, nothing mattered above love, but Lacroix had a hard time understanding things like that. They had spoken quite a bit before Lacroix had revealed that Janette was kind of 'his', and that he could have them both if he just would consent to live for all of time with them. He was actually a very romantic man. It was something that surprised Nick, even now. He himself was more the random soldier, art enthusiast, bumbling tourist than some type of fancy lover. Lacroix was nothing if not fancy.
Even his solidity, his toughness seemed kind of graceful. He had never pretended he didn't intensely love Nicholas, who was a little more low key about relationships. He had mourned Janette's dissolution of their early 'marriage' partially because it made Lacroix more relaxed. He seemed to feel that Nicholas would not leave him and stop loving him if he had a woman at the same time. It was kind of annoying, but Nick couldn't hurt him by saying anything. Lucien got way more paranoid about 'keeping' him when Janette wasn't there. He had acted like that right at the very beginning, before Nick had ever even thought about taking a break from him.
Lucien was a little overwhelming sometimes, to say the last. It was all well and good to say you wanted a romantic partner, but sometimes you just wanted to chill in your own space, alone. Without someone interested in everything you did, said and thought. People need space. If you crowd plants, they die.
Nick put his hand up on the study door and opened it a few inches, peeking around the corner. Lacroix sat there in his usual place, and it made him feel a rush of comfort, to see things back to normal. Lucien looked up from his laptop, and before he could say anything, Nick decided to ensure the conversation wouldn't upset him.
"Aristotle said the empire would have dissolved anyway, without any over-expansion," he began, speaking quickly. "I told him I'd see what you said about it." Lacroix was just as affronted as he'd hoped. A foreigner, and a Greek at that, talking about things that weren't his business? Lacroix felt many world events were only recorded correctly by him.
"This is just one more reason you shouldn't be talking to that philosophy obsessed fool," Lacroix said sharply, but he leaned back in his chair. Crisis averted. Nick came in and sat on the edge of his desk to listen, something he'd always done. Lacroix would make a great professor, if only he'd waste his time on it. "That's a common mis-understanding of the later period. If he bothered to learn at all about the earliest times, which I doubt he has," he began with gusto, "he'd understand the basic underpinnings that started it all..."
He went on for a hour and a half. Other people would have fallen asleep, but Nick had always enjoyed listening to him. He had such a strong personality, with opinions on everything [and anything]. Nick only had firm opinions on the Lord. And music. Everything else was up for grabs, usually.
The day passed as usual, and Lacroix bought even more gold bars online before they retired to the bed. Lacroix had a thing about dressing and undressing him: he liked to pick out his clothes and watch him in the first, and personally do the second.
When he put his hand on Nicholas' shoulder, he almost hesitated, so he asked him about the latest film news he'd heard.
Lacroix was weirdly a big film person. He watched many films... we're talking a strange number. He seemed to connect with it in some way. " 'The Witch' is finally out," he said, as Lacroix kissed his neck. "Do you want to see it? And what about that new 'Macbeth'? I think I might like it, it's all art design, from what I heard, anyway."
A hand smoothed down his arm slowly, and he lost track of time for a little while. "I haven't decided yet," Lucien said suddenly, and it took Nick quite a long time to get out of the haze he was in and connect that sentence. He opened his mouth to say something banal but got sidetracked when a different hand, the backs of his fingers, ran over his neck. Lacroix never bit him first. He didn't know why. Nick always did it first.
It either meant something, or it was personal. Either way, who knew why. Lacroix was still just as mysterious [in some ways] as he had been in the beginning. He suddenly bit him, feeling almost underwater in emotion. It was relief, and something else... with a side of being relieved. Lucien was still his old self. They went to bed, eventually, and the next day dawned with Nick having nothing to do. He didn't have to go into work, but hadn't bothered to tell Lacroix anything about it. He had randomly decided to stay at home, he told himself. He deserved some time off, just to have fun, after what he'd been through.
And he missed Lacroix. He was tired of how stressful it had been, how worried he'd felt. God, he'd spoken to Lacroix like he was in a coma. But he didn't dare ask if he'd heard anything. They were never going to talk about this. Lacroix was already a little more quiet than he usually was, if only due to Nick's obvious love-in-action. By now, Nick knew he'd figured out how long he'd been 'out of it' and how Nick had taken care of him like a baby. All without now humiliating him for it or using it against him, or even mentioning that it was indeed reality. Given an excellent chance to kill his old, odd love, he hadn't taken it. He had always reacted like that to any evidence of love, anytime Nick did something to show how much he cared about him. It was hard for him to take love directed at him, despite his lavishness when dishing it out on his favorite crusader.
Nick had never asked him the obvious question - if he felt religious people were stupid, worthless sheep, why had he gone after Nick? Why not choose someone smarter, older, wiser, more atheist? Nicholas had no idea how upset Lacroix really was at his mention of films. Those titles, he knew about; he'd seen advance copies long, long ago. And he took the mention of them in a way that Nick did not intend, and could not imagine.