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Souls of the Night – Vol 3
13.
"Lex, stop that. ...Lex, you'll break your fangs before you chew anything off your claws." Brooklyn put his hand on my wrist and forced my hand away from my mouth. "If you want to chew fingernails, turn yourself into a human," he grumbled discontentedly.
I briefly took my eyes off Jussuf Masoud's apartment where we'd been keeping watch for more than 78 minutes (78 minutes FOR FUCK'S SAKE!) without Nathaniel (in whatever form) showing up. I smoothed my glowering gaze because it really wasn't directed at Brooklyn. At Masoud, of course. Who was lying there in his cozy bed like an innocent lamb, dreaming little rapist dreams.
I tapped my Two Way.
"Do you see him?" I asked once again.
"No. Please stop asking every four minutes," Angela replied, annoyed, and if Angela sounded annoyed then she had reason to be. She and Nashville had taken up position above the Kings HWY stop, the others were waiting at the castle.
"Sorry," I mumbled and turned the channel off again. I grumbled in frustration.
"Are you sure he said line N?" I asked, turning my head to Tachi, who was crouched behind us with Heather.
"I'm sure he did. Do you want to check the baby cam recording in the cosplay room again?"
"No," I said and put my head in my hands, but one of my legs immediately started jerking in agitation. I knew she was right. I knew the kids had tried to talk Nathaniel out of it and he hadn't listened. What had gotten into him? What had he seen or read on his cell phone that made him do this?
"He should have been here by now."
"That asshole down there sleeps like a baby. There's no way Nathaniel was here," Tachi argued. I stood up and paced around the roof of the house, disgruntled.
"It's been almost three hours. He can't possibly - can't possibly have worn a patch for the first time and not felt any effects yet ... he - he must - have gotten off somewhere wrong and is now lying in some corner with patch poisoning and I can't-."
"Lex, calm down now. The others are all checking police radios. We'll be among the first to know if a burning gargoyle has been spotted somewhere."
"What if he reacts differently to the poisoning? What if he - my God, I don't know what could happen. I wish I hadn't left him alone."
"At some point you have to leave him alone, brother. The more you cling, the harder it will be for both of you, you know that. Don't freak out, it won't make it any better."
"I know! I fucking know-"
Brooklyn's cell phone rang and I stopped so abruptly in my neurotic pacing and rambling that I fell forward and ran to him on all fours, eager to hear everything. But Brooklyn had the good grace to put it on speaker right away.
"Yeah? Brooklyn here."
"Can someone explain to me-" we heard Talon's stern, somber voice. "-why Lexington's boyfriend, recently rescued from eternal petrification, is roaming the Labyrinth clan territory alone with the aftereffects of patch poisoning, nearly barbecued my son and our clan kids, and now, after devouring a dozen rats, won't let go of our hatchling? Hollywood is about to freak out here!"
"Uhhhm," my eloquent clan leader said, a little taken aback, as I shouted into his ear - or rather, into his cell phone.
"WHERE is he?"
.
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Where we sent the others home, my clan leader, the kids and I ended up in front of one of the old industrial drains that used to carry sewage into the Hudson River (some still do, but no one talked about it and no one wanted to hear it. But this here was one of the dry ones). Talon was standing outside with Michael and Hollywood and although Broadway's clone was now wearing human clothes like the rest of us (today a Big Bang Theory T shirt and jeans) he was intimidating as he immediately ran up to me and towered in front of me.
"YOU! Your mate not my hatchling give. Labyrinth Clan Hatchling! MY Vincent. He not give me! He snarl at me! Your own hatchling have, Vincent ours!"
I stood up on my hind legs so that I could glare at him just as venomously as he glared at me, and poked a claw into his chest.
"Hold your breath! Where is he?"
"Everyone calm down," Brooklyn and Talon said at the same time as Talon grabbed Hollywood by the arm and my brother grabbed me. Both clan leaders cleared their throats uncomfortably for saying the same words in the same tone of voice. They were still mostly disagreeing or needling each other. They weren't enemies, and Brooklyn had long since stopped resenting Talon for Maggie choosing him, but they were a constant challenge to each other, vacillating between allies and rivals for spokesmanship and planning power in situations they had to manage together.
But Brooklyn was the older one, and even though the more feisty, more youthful part of him sometimes joined in his bantering with Talon, he forced himself not to bicker in this situation.
"Thank you, Talon, for finding him. We'll tell him never to use one of the patches again without supervision. We don't know what got into him, but we'll sort it out." Talon had handed the grumbling Hollywood over to Michael, who led Vincent's father away, gave up his tense posture and smoothed his black fur at Brooklyn's well-chosen words.
"Okay. Man, you don't have to tell me that our job is mostly like herding fleas. Maybe this will clear everything up," the panther mutant grumbled, holding out the phone that had been taken from Nathaniel to Lexington.
I took it and resisted the urge to crack the password immediately and read what exactly had brought my loved one into this situation.
"Please," I said unhappily. "Where is he?"
Brooklyn put a hand on my shoulder. Tachi had sent Heather off to God knows where, but kept an eye on the hatchling while our own chick hopped over the boulders on the riverbank like she was looking for something.
Talon pointed over his shoulder into the dark sewer, big enough for me to walk upright in but the others would have to stoop.
"He's back there with Vincent but first I want to talk about his condition so-"
"God, what condition!" I groaned, trying to get past him. Brooklyn held me back.
"-so he doesn't catch fire again because you're approaching him too fast. He ... doesn't react well when adults get close."
"How bad are the after-effects of the patch poisoning? And he was burning, you said?"
"Yes. But then- something went up and he was covered in this white foam."
I sighed. "Well, that was the fire extinguisher chips."
Talon rolled his eyes. "How nice that he had these little helpers before he barbecued our children."
"We're really sorry about the incident. How receptive is Nathaniel to arguments?"
"Arguments? When Michael tried to talk to him, he wavered between panic and anger. Likewise with me. And Hollywood - don't even ask - they just snarled and hissed at each other and he won't let go of Vincent. We're lucky that the little one doesn't panic himself. If he started crying, there'd be a bloodbath between Hol and your Nathaniel."
"Or a roasting," Brooklyn shot back, and both clan leaders narrowed their eyes before Talon smirked.
"Or that. I don't know why he's so attached to the hatchling. He was the first one to get close to him, though. And they ... were somehow talking to each other. Not with words but with your archaic gargoyle baby chirp and grumble language."
"Nathaniel doesn't use gargoyle sounds - he can't even tell what the vocalizations mean."
"Now that the forced transformation has burned through a few wires, he certainly can," Talon said matter-of-factly.
Brooklyn, Tachi and I looked at each other in horror.
"Shit," Tachi said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Not all of us had ever had to endure a forced re-transformation (whether through sunrise or a time overrun and emergency body reaction). But it felt like being turned inside out. Physically AND mentally. I couldn't even imagine how Nathaniel had felt. Another deep notch in his trauma stick.
"He doesn't even use human words anymore?" asked Brooklyn.
"Michael said, he stuttered something around right before they dragged him off the train they were stuck on. ... Please. Brother. And help."
"Nathaniel said before he disappeared from the castle that he had to stop Jussuf Massoud before he could do to his brother what he did to him," Tachi said.
"And that's why he's so attached to Vincent," said Michael, who had rejoined us from where Hollywood was now jumping over the stones with Heather, looking for whatever. It was strange to see her and her father's clone getting along so well. They were somehow on the same mental level and had no resentment towards each other just because their clans and clan leaders sometimes rubbed against each other. Among children, the world was sometimes very simple.
"So why should he be attached to Vincent?" I asked.
"Vincent communicated with him. With words and chirps. And he called himself his brother - to ease his fears. And Nathaniel has been clinging to him ever since. A classic case from my psychology courses - Vincent is a placeholder."
"So you mean," said Tachi, rubbing her beak thoughtfully. "So you mean Nathaniel in his limited reasoning right now is trying to protect Vincent - his "brother"- from whatever. Because in his mind, his human brother and the hatchling who called himself his brother are one and the same. That's why he won't let any adults get close to him, not even the one who looks like his father. Any adult can be a danger. Like Massoud is a danger to his real brother."
Talon raised his head to Brooklyn. "It can never be easy with you guys, can it?"
Brooklyn grinned. "'Easy' would be very boring. And we're not talking about this 2009 thing, huh?"
"Pfft, old chestnuts," commented Talon.
"Okay. Okay," I said impatiently, staring into the dark pipe. "Nate's not in control of his wits right now. We get it. But he'll recognize me. Goliath only let Elisa get close to him when he was ... uhh was handicapped."
"We'd all be very grateful if you'd take your "handicapped" friend off our hands," Talon grumbled sarcastically. "But he may leave Vincent with us."
Brooklyn sent Tachi after Heather and Hollywood. Together we went into the tunnel. Our claws and Michael's shoes echoed in the gloom and Talon produced a cold, flickering light after a few yards.
Falk and Cat stood in front of a drainpipe that was slightly smaller in diameter but where a not very tall adult could still squat. Cat had a half-dissected rat in her claws, the partially dried blood glistening on her creamy short fur and pink T-shirt.
"Hi kids," Brooklyn said as we approached, but Falk raised both arms, bringing us all to a stop.
"Slow down... and be quiet. We just got him a little calmer and less grumpy."
"Vincent?" I asked, knowing they didn't mean him.
The tiger mutant boy bent a little to stare into the pipe, creating his own light.
"Nathaniel..."
A snort was heard. Not a human sound. Then a low rumble.
"Nathaniel, don't be afraid. Look, your family's here." While Cat tore off a rat leg with a soft crack and tossed it into the smaller tunnel, the rumbling was immediately replaced by smacking and gulping sounds as Falk tentatively beckoned us closer, but Brooklyn and I didn't even have to exchange glances to know that I probably had the best chance of getting through to my glass prince. Although I was a little disgusted (when had I become so fussy about sewer filth?) I got down on all fours and crawled to the tunnel entrance.
The first thing I noticed was the blood on the floor of the tunnel and the bits and pieces of rat carcasses. A gruesome trail to the nearly naked blue-skinned creature wearing Nathaniel's face and body, the little orange hatchling chewing on the piece of rat wrapped in one of his wings, but Nate was glaring at me from the darkness with cold white eyes. He had had a nosebleed - dried brown traces - and underneath crusty and fresher traces of blood around his mouth, which he opened to hiss at me quietly and threateningly. I felt my penis twitch at the sight of this wild nightmare creature, thrown back for a moment to the more archaic, deeper convolutions of my brain. Nate was ... fucking gorgeous. The thought of feeling this beast beneath me, snapping at me before it surrendered to its mate and allowed itself to be reamed, made me let out a croak that Nathaniel seemed to understand perfectly in his current state. The gleam in his eyes faded and he tilted his head a little puzzled. I cleared my throat, found my voice again and forced myself to smile.
"Hey. Hey, tough guy. That's a lot of rats. You're going to get a tummy ache."
My love looked at the half-eaten carcasses lining the floor, licking at the dry blood on his chin. Good. He still understood human words. But I recognized no trace of my normal Nathaniel in him. The normal Nathaniel would have had a panic attack or thrown up at the thought of biting into a twitching rat body. This one was emotionlessly scanning his prey.
I held out my hands. "Nate. Come to me. It's me, Lex. Come. You know me."
Tentatively, my favorite pushed himself out of the tube without letting Vincent out of his grip, his eyes darting warily to the kids. Cat and Falk - protected by their instincts despite everything - stepped back, giving him plenty of space. And as a result, Nathaniel was suddenly - and much faster than I had expected - with me. I wanted to hug him but he ignored my hands and pushed himself under me, bringing me back to a standing position. I cried out as his face pressed into my groin and he inhaled my aroma deeply.
"WOA! Nate!"
He buried his face into my crotch so greedily, his hot blood-soaked breath warming that area, that I pushed him off me with both hands in horror. Which hardly stopped him from continuing. He grunted and croaked softly and it sounded like pure seduction while his free hands ran along my legs. If I was still wearing a loincloth like I used to, this would be more than dangerous. Even with the sturdy, rough jeans it was intense.
"Jesus Christ! Kids, look away or you'll be banned from TV for a week!" Talon exclaimed.
Nathaniel turned his head as he heard the partly startled, partly openly disgusted sounds of the others, his claws pressing into my ass, his body close to me but snarling again and his eyes lighting up.
I looked at the others too, my eyes must have been bigger than usual, not really from excitement but from embarrassment. I usually made Nate blush - but this ...Wild-Nate didn't have much to do with my bashful lover and that was the only reason my pants weren't bursting right now. I knew the victims of patch poisoning usually remembered a lot from those confused hours and what it would do to the normal Nathaniel Sharif was hard to imagine. Davis would have to deal with him until she retired. Even Tachi had put her hands over Heather and Hollywood's eyes, and if anything made her uncomfortable, it was too much.
"Okay- he recognizes Lexington all right. Fine," Michael said disturbed.
Everyone looked very disgusted and irritated right now.
"Don't look at me like that, he's usually completely different!" I croaked and pulled Nate up higher where he was now licking my throat. And his hands pulled my lower body towards him and his claws found the magnets on my thighs and he ripped them open and only the Kevlar vest with the wide straps I had pulled through my flying skins prevented me from losing my pants. God, did he want-? In front of everyone? But I was the Top!
"Can someone help me?" I asked, wrestling with Nate, managing to press a hand to his chest, hot with magical warmth and arousal, feeling his heart beating wildly under his bare skin, feeling his erection against my thigh.
"I knew it was a good idea to invest in the fireproof underwear," I heard Tachi murmur as if she could read my mind, approving sounds coming from several throats.
Talon crossed his arms, his fur standing up in revulsion but a sardonic smirk curling the corner of his short snout as he looked at Brooklyn. "Man, pal, I know patch poisoning disinhibits normal behavior and thought patterns. Please tell me it doesn't always work like this between the two of them or I can't send your kids back with you with a clear conscience."
"You don't have to worry about our children!" Brooklyn snarled indignantly.
"He's YOUR brother and his mate who are hot to trot here. I'm totally pro LGBTQ and all that stuff but - but make him stop - I'm gonna have nightmares for the rest of my life, Falk, Cat, I said look away!" Talon ordered.
"I'm really just a victim of circumstance here right now!" I groaned and tried to stop Nathaniel from trying to claim me (gladly - but not with spectators) with a gargoyle growl. My beloved briefly lowered his ears, submissive as I knew him to be, before flashing a beastly sweet smile and nuzzling me. I thought my erection was obvious to everyone by now, as was Nathaniel's. Thank the Dragon, in his current state he couldn't figure out how to take off his shorts or my pants. But that wouldn't stop him from ripping those rags off our bodies forever.
"I think we'll give you primal-gargoyle time," Talon said. Brooklyn bared his teeth at the indirect insult. His face much redder than usual in the semi-darkness, he stepped forward, anxious to end this embarrassing scene quickly. God, I wanted it to end too. ... didn't I?
"Stop your jokes, Talon. Michael and kids - thanks for finding him. Thanks for babysitting, but we're taking him back now," Brooklyn said, taking a step towards us again. Nathaniel immediately hissed at him, bright red but not yet hot tendrils of magical lava instantly creeping across his wings. My clan leader raised his hands, stepped back, and looked at me inquiringly. God, Nathaniel was so protective. Because of me, and surely because of Vincent, who was whimpering in his wing because he'd finished his piece of rat. It would all be so arousing if I didn't know how bad my friend would feel when he could think beyond "eat, fuck and protect hatchling," again. And then an idea came to me.
"Nate! Nathaniel," I said, grabbing him by both wrists and forcing him to look at me. "Nathaniel," I repeated slowly and firmly. "Nate- I'll do whatever you want with you. But you have to give the hatchling back to the Labyrinth Clan. It's not ours. Let him go."
"You give Vincent over!" Hollywood insisted, flashing his fangs, which in his case were more like dominant tusks.
"We have rats too," Heather said a little more invitingly, stepping to the front of the line and uncovering what she and Hollywood had probably been looking for on the riverbank. A dead rat - magically and bloodlessly killed - Heather's specialty.
"And minor sexual cuddle piles with Lex and your favorite leader?" Tachi threw into the pot and Brooklyn moaned in agony.
"Great - that I can feel the rolling around on the floor in my lumbar vertebrae for hours again."
But Nathaniel looked anything but willing and had even forgotten his efforts to molest me and was now backing away towards the smaller drainpipe, grumbling quietly.
"Nate. You can't keep him," I said urgently, almost pleadingly. I wanted him back at the castle before sunrise. We wouldn't be safe enough here, the pickup crew would have a hard time retrieving us, and Nathaniel's trauma would probably make it hard for him to fly back tomorrow night.
"He's not your brother," I said quietly. "Vincent doesn't need your protection. Look at Hollywood- the big orange guy." Sure enough, Nathaniel's eyes followed my finger to the gargoyle standing at the very back because he just filled the whole canal. "Vincent is his hatchling. Vincent has a loving clan that protects him with claws and teeth. You have shown that you are a great brother and a great rookery keeper- I am very proud of you. But he is not Hassan. If you won't let go of Vincent, how can you protect Hassan?" I argued gently, trying to really get through Nathaniel's wild side to his inner self. My prince, however, jerked back hissing as I tried to reach for Vincent, shaking his head.
Suddenly someone started whimpering. It wasn't Vincent, who was small enough to have the primal instinct of a hatchling to squirm as little as possible in the clutches of an agitated adult, but Heather. We all looked at the child - older than Vincent - much older - as she sat on the floor with tears streaming down her face.
"Uncle Nate doesn't want to come. He likes Vincent much better as a hatchling than me! Wuuaahhh!" She rolled on the disgusting floor and whimpered and chirped and grumbled in deepest despair that even my heart hurt. But when I looked at Nate, saw his open mouth, his startled back-and-forth stare, I knew THAT was our leverage.
"Yes, Heather! Our baby. Your hatchling. Look how sad she is. She needs you. And Tachi needs you too!" I snapped in Tachi's direction, who straightened up and put a hand to her chest in astonishment.
"Me? Hardly fucking likely. I'm obviously too old to play the baby! And my jeans tonight are suede!"
"Please, you need him," I pleaded.
Brooklyn pushed his daughter forward. "You may order the French silk if you do," he hissed.
Tachi groaned in annoyance and then glared at me. "You'll be my model for this humiliation."
"Okay, do it."
She squatted down on the floor, took a deep breath and began to chirp sadly.
"Uncle Nate doesn't want us anymore. He's got a better hatchling and he doesn't care about the eggs in the brood cave. He doesn't care about rats or even his mate."
"Nateeee-" Heather wailed, clinging to her clan sister. "You like Vincent better than me and Tachi. I thought I was your hatchling. But you don't want to take care of me anymore. Why don't you want to be my rookery daddy? We might as well be smashed to pieces by humans Wuhhahahhhhh!" She lowered her head and folded her wings over herself. Then she was just a whimpering, quivering ball of leathery skin. Tachi pressed against her and sobbed, and it sounded really convincing.
Nathaniel was shaking himself, looking at Heather, at Tachi crouching unhappily beside her. He grabbed his head and looked really torn, then whined loudly, pushing Vincent towards Hollywood, who immediately took the child in his arms. Nate crawled up to Heather and Tachi like a whipped dog and squeezed himself between them, now wrapping his wings around them and starting the hatchling-soothing, archaic humming chant that shouldn't have been ingrained in his originally human brain. Heather was clinging to him but, blubbery and snotted as she was, flashed a big grin behind Nate's back and gave a thumbs up to us all - that brilliant brat. Brooklyn and I sighed with relief.
.
.
It took us hours to get home. Everything caught the attention of this Nathaniel, who was reduced to the most primal, archaic gargoyle instincts. It was very worrying that he could glide easily but was so disturbed by the sudden flash of a light in a window or a wailing siren in the streets that he snatched Heather out of the air several times and fled with her to a rooftop. Tachi was level-headed enough to stick close enough to Brooklyn, which somewhat diminished Nathaniel's protective urges because the older hatchling was with the pack leader. But Heather was "his" hatchling.
Seeing him like this - so "feral" - triggered strange feelings in me. Pity - of course - because I expected that when he woke up, his human side would come out and he would be ashamed to death of his behavior for a dozen different reasons. But another feeling that kept flaring up was arousal. Excitement to see the man I loved so detached from everything that burdened him. Surely, much of his actual character was lost in the process and I loved his character, too. But to experience a more bestial Nate, stripped down to essential gargoyle nature - with our vocalizations, with our fluid movements, with blood on his beautiful lips - that was so fucking hot and arousing. I had a hunch that if I had pushed the right buttons that night, he would have laid his tail aside for me and let me fuck him like a horny bitch. And he would have loved it and I would have loved it. The way he'd smelled my crotch in the tunnel, pushed his nose into it - sniffed me out, absorbed my essence right down to my pheromones and the scent molecules fixed in my DNA - that was too sexy. Sure, it had disturbed everyone AND me. But damn, it had been hot - sue me.
After we'd managed to stop him from eating a cat, we finally made it to the castle just before dawn where everyone was already waiting on the battlements. Brooklyn had had hours to fill them in on what had happened and Nathaniel's condition via his Two Way and everyone did well to keep their distance when we landed. Still, Wild-Nate was immediately alert and kept Heather from jumping to Goliath.
The clan approached slowly and following my instructions no one paid any attention to Nathaniel, we talked over his head, everyone kept their eyes on me or Brooklyn and it seemed to make my friend feel really safe to be completely ignored. Bronx sniffed at Nate and Beast and enchanted human grumbled in sounds that even I couldn't interpret but that seemed content and unanimous. Nashville dared to stretch his hand in Nathaniel's direction- who flinched at first but then rubbed his head against Nashville's leg.
For the first time in weeks, Nashville giggled in a childlike way and gave Nate a warm smile.
"Can we keep him like this? He'd annoy me less that way." He scratched Nathaniel behind his ear. I wanted to bitch at him for treating my man like a pet, but right now Nathaniel's hind leg was twitching under Nashville's scratching and heaven, it was so adorable I wanted to film it on my phone and play it over and over because right now I was getting a fluff-overload.
"Enough of this, Nash," Katana said sternly. And her son raised his hands.
"Good, yes, all right. We know what it's like - these side effects only last one night until the stone sleep knits his overloaded brain cells back together. Assuming it works on Hercules like it did on Goliath back then and on the clones again and again - hey, slow down now!" snapped Nash, because Nathaniel had pulled him to his knees, put his wing over him and was nuzzling his face and neck. He wanted to push my friend away in annoyance because he was getting too touchy feely for him, but Nathaniel gave an unusually bossy growl and forced him into his protective wings.
"What are you doing?" Nash fell on his ass under Nate's nudges.
"Just let him do it. That's how he comforts his hatchlings," mumbled Heather tiredly, who by now was simply holding herself close to Nate while he wrapped his tail around her.
"WHAT!" Nash nagged. "I'm not a goddamn hatchling and I don't fucking need comforting."
"Language!" his father rumbled. I looked at Goliath, who had his arms crossed and smirked, which made me laugh.
"Well - maybe his animal side senses your inner turmoil and has declared you a hatchling in need of special care despite your age," I said gloatingly, baring my teeth, while my beloved pressed the world's oldest gargoyle hatchling against him with his wing and let out that instinct-driven guttural gargoyle hum that made even adults feel calmer.
"The sun's coming up," Broadway said. "Let's hope he's back to his old self tomorrow night."
Tachi landed next to him, no one had noticed she'd been gone. I wanted to ask her why she had already brought the bucket for Dust duty, but then the sun crept over us all.
Everyone knows that the bucket is about to be sorely needed.
So- that was my short intermezzo with a part of the Labyrinth clan in 2023. Cat and Falk, they don't tell you anything yet- and they won't play a big role in any story. But you will all be happy that they will exist.
And how do you like a wilder, unbridled Nathaniel? I'll dig him out again when the time is right - this chapter is already written - but I don't know when I'll include it. Lex would have a much easier time with a Nate like that- and Nate would probably be happier, too. As they say, ignorance is bliss. But their relationship, especially sexually, would somehow have this ... uhh, how do I say this... kind of mentally handicapped rape vibes. The dependency relationship would just be too big - and that's not arousing I think (besides, I already have such an unpleasant storyline in 2009 ... oh God, even two at the same time, I just realized ... and I don't need any more of it).
Thanks for reading, Q.T.