.
Souls of the Night – Vol3.
36.
...
"-cules ... Hercules ... Nate. Uncle Nate! Nathaniel!"
I flinched as Nashville roughly punched me in the arm and stared at him indignantly.
"Whaaat?" I whined, rubbing the spot that were already bruised.
He squatted on his haunches, staring back, not even angry but with that worried furrow above his brow ridge that would be chiseled into his forehead like Brooklyn's if he kept showing it.
"Everything okay? You were completely out of it. And you're bleeding like a pig."
"Me, what?" I brought my hand to my nose where it felt wet and the whole back of my hand was bloody.
"Oh damn!" I groaned, holding my hand under my nose but my new poncho was already bloody and I immediately had a handkerchief in my grasp (why did everyone always carry handkerchiefs around but not me who was crying or bleeding the most?)
"Oh gosh, I don't know why I'm bleeding," I said distressed and tipped my head back, which Nash immediately pushed straight.
"Man, don't do that. You'll just get blood down your throat and stomach and end up throwing up ... I should take you home."
"It'll stop before they start," I said, pressing the handkerchief against my nose.
Nashville was staring at me again (didn't the guy have a nightly quota for that?).
"Human bodies sometimes have nosebleeds," I said, struggling to dodge the problem. "No need for you to worry and torment me with your serpentine glare."
Nashvillle cleared his throat and broke eye contact. "Nate... the concert's been over for ten minutes. I've been shaking you ever since, but you've been completely spaced out and unresponsive."
"What? No way, you-" I looked down into the main room where people were dispersing and many had already left including Graziella, Sonny and Vito.
Flabbergasted, I leaned back against the balustrade and rubbed my far too hornless forehead.
"But... I can't... I didn't," I stuttered, confused.
"Don't get worked up, Nathaniel."
"But I- don't understand. I've never had anything like this happen to me before."
Nashville's hand followed on my forehead and this warm, even fatherly gesture made me lean against it automatically.
"Do you have a headache? Are you dizzy? Are you seeing double? Did you maybe hit your head before I came?"
"No. I'm fine. Well, I've got a bit of a headache and my ears are ringing a bit but - all good ... I think." I stood up, but my legs were like jelly and before I could tumble over the low balustrade and spectacularly break myself in the prayer room below, Nashville had pulled me back and got me back into a sitting position. Before he sat down next to me, he stared into my eyes again, checked my pupils for whatever and then sighed silently, probably relieved at what he had or hadn't seen.
"I'll- we'll sit here for a while and you tell me exactly what you remember last. And if your nosebleed hasn't stopped in ten minutes or you feel worse, I'll call an ambulance."
I raised my hands defensively. "That's really not necessary!" I sputtered. I hated hospitals. I'd been poked and prodded far too much there, I would be asked far too many questions that I couldn't or didn't want to answer. And I wasn't feeling THAT bad. I was a bit distraught, I was a bit anxious and my body was playing tricks on me again - but honestly - WHEN did any of this NOT apply to Nathaniel Sharif? It wasn't as if I had - I don't know - brain cancer and was now getting blackouts on top of ... oh god, did i have brain cancer and everything was a symptom of that?!
I swallowed hard and placed a hand against my throat, feeling my own racing pulse on my jugular vein. Nashville snapped his fingers and his bitchy tone, which demanded concentration, did me good when he forced me to tell him that I had seen the children come in, that they had lined up, that the choir leader had positioned herself with her baton and that the first notes had definitely reached me. But after that ... nothing for almost three quarters of an hour.
After that, we both just sat there. Nash had placed his hand thoughtfully on his beak and I was also at a loss.
"Maybe ... it won't happen again," I muttered quietly. I didn't want to minimize it - but I didn't like Nashville's worried look. I liked him snarky and grumpy and enjoying his own jibes towards me.
"How statistically likely is it that shit around us is just going to fizzle out," he muttered, tilting his head back. I took the handkerchief from my nose and the cellulose stuck to the now-dried blood. I showed him the handkerchief. "There you see. It's stopped," I said happily and he smiled.
"At least the blood now covers up the smell of the depilatory cream."
I puffed out my cheeks and let out a gush of air, avoiding looking too surprised even though I was avoiding eye contact. Which was easy because we were sitting next to each other, both on the floor, both with our legs outstretched. I hated how wrong my feet looked in my sneakers next to his gargoyle-clawed feet. And of course he'd smelled the cream on me even though I'd bought the one that supposedly didn't contain perfume or something. I just had hoped Nash thought my shaving cream for my face smelled like that.
"How do you know what depilatory cream smells like? Gargoyles don't really tend to have body hair."
"Firstly, I was for years in the industry where everyone and anyone depilates and secondly, I had a human girlfriend. And thirdly, don't divert."
I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to sink deeper into my woolen wing substitute. So a conversation after all ... I should have guessed that Nashville would try to talk me into it after all. But maybe ... I could practise with him for a similar conversation with Lexington or Davis and find out what would upset me and my conversation partner the least.
"I probably won't get very far with the explanation that men also epilate and that it's normal. 21 century? Metrosexuality and all that?" I try with an almost cheerful tone and a charming smile. Nashville grinned - a billion teeth at a rough estimate, but I'd learned to tell the difference between smiling and snarling in Gargoyles and there was nothing offensive in his tone either, although he rolled his eyes like an annoyed teen.
"You shuffle around in baggy sweatpants in your free time and have dreadlocks that you don't have to wash for two weeks - don't fuck with me. Why removing your body hair? Why are you trying to alter yourself, why the bruises? You're not as stable as you were as a gargoyle and your aches and pains no longer heal at sunrise. So- why? I've heard you moaning and groaning from outside the bathroom. Thought you were having quality time with your hand - which would at least relieve some of your tension - and didn't want to interrupt you. Some humans sound like they're in pain during sex or solo sessions - I know that. But you're really just hurting yourself, huh?"
I laughed a little awkwardly and rubbed the flat of my hand over my face. Okay ... Nash was in the mood to talk frankly. I had the option of squirming like a worm like I always did or meeting him at eye level like he was attempting to do with me. I had the impression I had never been so on a par with a clan member apart from Lexington as I was with Nash in these minutes. And that with Nashville of all people. I didn't want to mess this up. Not for him and not for me.
"It... It's not about the pain per se. I don't like it when it hurts. And it's nothing sexual. Quite the opposite. Just ... the pain forces me to remember that I'm human. It throws me ... how do I say this - back to my current body. The bruises are just a bonus."
"Because your skin was blue as a gargoyle?"
I didn't look at him, and I could just feel that Nash wasn't looking at me either. That helped us both.
"Yeah. I guess so. I know that my actions are contradictory. I ... am irrational. It feels right to remove my body hair or pinch myself blue even though I know that this is pathological behavior. In short ... I'm having trouble settling into my humanity. Everything should be great, everything should be easier and more normal. I love Lex, I love the clan, I love my job and I also really like the people I'm around there. But instead of arriving, I feel so alienated."
Nashville lit a cigarette next to me (in a church ... after all, he was a bit of a bad boy). After he had exhaled the first smoke in a white billowing cloud, there was something very thoughtful and velvety about his voice.
"The echoes? You feel, see, perceive things that you shouldn't feel, see and perceive."
"... Yes. Echoes. I hope it's just that. I've spoken to Davis, asked Alex about it. But everyone says I need to give myself time."
"We both know you have bruises in places that don't get bruised in the fight at his company. How are you going to keep that a secret from Lex?"
"I- don't even try to keep it a secret from Lex. And I want to tell him everything, really, honestly. We have a rule about that-"
Nashville made a short snotty noise. "Sure you have a rule for that. Dorks. But since there hasn't been any drama about it, he doesn't know. Hell, all he has to do is pull up your clothes and-"
"Chances of that happening right now aren't very high," I snarked back.
Nash cracked a grin.
"Good to know something else is blue on you without you pinching yourself in that spot," he said. "Lex has been a little priss for a few days now - again. And unlike before your transformation, neither he nor you smell like each other much."
"God, no sex talk please!" I said whimpering theatrically and we both laughed at that.
"You're not getting sex talk from me, Nate! Goliath is responsible for long-lasting traumatic and confusing sex talk, but if you two keep not moving towards each other, and I'm not just talking about sex in general, people other than me or Tachi will notice.
"Oh, I'm lucky Tachi hasn't come around yet."
"You were."
"We weren't arguing."
"I know that. We know that. But you both reek of insecurity like teenagers who don't dare touch each other. Are you two taking two steps back instead of forward because of these fucking echoes?"
"I thought you were annoyed by our PDAs."
"Just like every single is annoyed by PDA`s of couples. Man, Hercules, adopt some kind of a I-don't-give-a-shit attitude, you'll do better in the long run."
"I can tell by the look on his face that he misses me as a gargoyle. Damn, I miss me as a gargoyle. As a gargoyle, at least that was easier. I mean ... the physical."
"You can call it sex, I'm a big boy. And sure, Lex misses you as a gargoyle - gargoyles are awesome, but why you wanted to be human is beyond me. Why do you think it was easier as a gargoyle? I don't think Lexington would mind you being human in your hockups. It takes some practice in the heat of the moment not to grab humans too hard, but it can work."
I cleared my throat as the unpleasant memory snippets of Nashville's last (known to me) " run-in" with Graziella Dracon flashed before my inner eye - and of the bruises I had noticed on her afterwards.
"...He doesn't touch me anymore, anyway." I confessed
"And you seriously think that's his fault?"
I rubbed both ears, which were terribly hot right now. If I still had the fire powers, I probably would have burst into flames with embarrassment. "I... that's not what I meant. I just don't know ... Geez Nashville. It was just easier as a gargoyle."
"I just don't get you. Okay- these echoes seem to be bothering you and you don't feel comfortable in your human body right now. But my uncle wants you. You want him, he wants you, neither of you is a crime boss who wants to kill you and you don't have a freaky bond that will strangle one of you or slowly drive you both insane - so what does that mean, it was easier as a gargoyle?
"My urges! My urges in that regard. It's not just because I'm not comfortable in this skin right now. I still want THAT but ... I have the impression that if I let my urges take over again - even though I'm human again ... that's not good. So - do I want to be like that? Am I just like that? Damn, I want to climb Lexington like a tree and never come down and I'm otherwise more controlled. I - I finally need control over my life, over this body. And if I lose control in this matter, then where else? Where else? Everywhere? I'm afraid of that and-"
Nashville stopped my rambling with a short shrill laugh that echoed throughout the church. I looked around in horror but the main room at our backs had emptied.
Nash put a hand on my shoulder and gasped several times. My face had to be blood red by now.
"Nate!" my `nephew` gasped, looking at me with a grin.
"What?" I asked, quite angry.
"Are you just trying to tell me, in your unique and incomparable way, that you're afraid to enjoy sex now that you're human again? Are you afraid of becoming a cock-hungry slut?"
"Tha-Tha-That's not funny, Nashville! It's really not," I growled, shaking off his shoulder. God, I wanted to sink into the ground! Or burst into flames to get rid of this tension. Or glide far away to crawl under my bed at home. But I didn't even know how to get down from this gallery if the door down was locked. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the time I'd had an erection and sexually violated Lexington after Brentwood's assault. Or when I'd had the patch poisoning and nearly mounted him in front of half the staff of two clans (including their clan kids). If the echoes never went away... if I was always tossed back and forth between human and gargoyle in my sick mind... then something inside me would always remain so vulnerable. At the mercy of pleasure and instinct. I was so tired of being weak.
Nashville sighed - now more serious again. "No. It's not. It's not funny. You're scared. But your fears are totally neurotic and baseless ... Do you want to hear my assessment?"
"Since I don't want to walk home and I don't have the money for a cab with me, I don't really have a choice, do I?" I grumbled and let myself be soothed a little by Nashville's arm, which he lowered onto my shoulder like a buddy and his more empathetic tone.
"Okay, no bad blood. Sorry for the laugh. I'm not Davis, but I've taken a few psychology classes over the years and- don't look at me like that! For years, everyone and myself have been trying to distract me from my ex. You learn a lot of useless shit just to fill the nights. ... So- hypothetically ... Have you ever thought that you weren't a slut as a gargoyle and that you're not a slut now as a human, even though you … uhm - desire my uncle? But simply someone who liked and likes sex and wants to feel it again and as often as possible with the person he loves?"
"But as a gargoyle it was ... - so intense." I pulled my legs up to my body and wrapped my arms around them.
"That's how sex and desire and love should be. Even for humans."
"I don't know," I whispered. "I just want to be a normal person."
"Nate. You've been trapped in a ... let's call it a relationship full of pain and coercion and physical and psychological suffering. All in connection with sex. Do you think you could objectively judge what is healthy and normal and okay? As a gargoyle, you first learned to enjoy it ... maybe even recognized it as something you want - but you are allowed to want it as a human being. Why do you need the gargoyle as an excuse? Humans are all about sex, why are you denying yourself something that's normal? You and Lex are allowed to do it."
He raised his hands in jest and looked terribly sheepish when I looked up. "In appropriate doses and preferably not in front of our noses- thank you very much, but you can enjoy that and your body. It doesn't change your general character." He jostled me comfortingly with his arm over my shoulders. "You're our Nathaniel weenie. You don't have to be stuck in misery like me. You don't have to. You can be freer and happier if you choose that. Nothing will ever be perfect and easy because life isn't like that ... but a lot is up to you. Don't be afraid to discover new things about yourself just because you're afraid of change ... or ... Are you worried that Lexington will hurt you with his claws and his strength?"
Now he had managed to make me smile after all. When Nashville wanted to, he could turn anyone against him or win anyone over - that was a gift he didn't use at all.
"Your psychology courses were really worth the money. Did my torso just look like Lexington's claws would scare me?"
He gave me a rather rough slap with his tail that made me laugh. "I like you when you show that hint of nasty shit, Nate."
"And I like it when you do the smart big brother thing," I returned, raising my hand and flicking him against the bridge of his brow with my blunt human fingers and he was indignant but grinning.
"Big brother! Of you? Creepy. But no. Tachi is the introverted twisted genius. Heather is our whirlwind charged with life energy and joy. And I ... am the empath. Just don't tell the others or I'll have to play the agony aunt all the time, okay?"
"Okay." I took a deep breath, the smell of incense and dust in my nose, but not in an unpleasant way. I really felt better - physically and mentally. And I thought I had seen a piece of Nashville that he didn't show many others. I rested my head on my bent knees and looked at him from the side while he lit a second cigarette. And then blew the smoke away from me because my human lungs didn't have a daily reset button like his. I watched the smoke out of the corner of my eye, imagining it forming into waves or rings like I had easily done as a fire bug in gargoyle shape ... but nothing of the sort happened and I felt drained from the attempt alone.
"You understand problems of this kind quite well, huh?" I asked, having become more confident through our bonding, because that's what this was, wasn't it?
Nash stared straight ahead even though there was only the blank wall to see, thought about it, then the corner of his mouth twisted into a self-ironic smirk and he was a little cooler, more composed and distant again, as if the following didn't have too much to do with him.
"To feel neither human nor gargoyle? Not being able to be happy with either? I sort of invented that. And I can tell you ... the people you have around you at such times are the key to everything. They can destroy you or save you."
"Graziella ...," I said. Quietly, almost like a cursed word that could bring disaster upon us.
Nashville put his head back, brought his hand to his chest and placed his fingers over his chest as if his heart ached.
"Graziella," he confirmed, but in a reverent tone of a different kind.
"... My destiny ... is to suffer from afar. Whenever she laughs when someone else says something that isn't even funny. Whenever she gives a smirk or a biting comment to someone who isn't me. Do you know how much I would have liked to swoop down and grab and shake the priest earlier because he dared to sit next to her? I get dangerous when I get too close to her. Irrational. Vicious. Because she doesn't want to be mine and I can't be hers."
"You love her."
"Yes. Among other things. Our kind of love hurts. Both of us. And others around us. Our toxic kind of love pulls you back to the ground on iron chains where other lovers grow wings - pun intendent," he said smugly, briefly searching my gaze for confirmation and my uncertain smile from which I tried to keep the pity out did the trick.
"I need Graziella. I needed her, she betrayed me - several times by the way - and I still need her. The reassurance that she's not too far away, that she's alive, that she's thinking of me, maybe changing her ways with me in mind-which probably won't happen because she's fucking Graziella Dracon, the toughest, most devious, meanest shit on the East Coast. Sometimes I think I want to see her behind bars, to know where she is - every hour of every day. Which ... is really ironic because both of our pasts with cages whether real or abstract is just hilarious ... But at the same time, I know that a small part of her needs me, if only to satisfy her obsession with power and control, and she still has a strangely romantic idea of us."
"Romantic?"
"Yes. We need each other. A bond created many, many years ago between two children out of mutual desire to no longer be alone, out of childish longing for a companion in the beginning. And later out of more, so much more, but this bond can only flourish out of mutual consent - and it doesn't. That's why I'm slowly breaking and if there's anything like a God, Graziella will feel a tiny stab in her heart when I'm gone one night."
"If she has a heart," I murmured, wanting so much to hug Nashville. He wasn't crying, he was talking like he was referring about other people, but even though he didn't sound like that, it had to hurt. It had to hurt him so much. And strangely enough... I didn't feel at all crushed by him sharing this with me. How had Dracon been able to do this to Nashville? How could she not love this fundamentally warm person? How could she have chosen a life of crime over him and Clan? I just didn't understand. I just longed for Lexington.
"She has a heart," Nashville commented. "I'm not that young and stupid anymore to convince myself she doesn't have one. She loves Vito deeply. Believe me, if that wasn't the case and if I or one of us had found a single sign of obvious child endangerment, we would have made sure that he was separated from her. But she is a good mother within her means. And she loves Sonny like a - well, let's call him a brother and BFF - not just a useful lackey. And a small power-hungry, totally twisted piece of her loves me too ... or at least the idea of being able to captivate me with her displays of false affection or calculated vulnerability. I wish she didn't have a heart. Then things would be so much easier. But it's not easy between us. Not when one party is a gargoyle and the other a human. Not when one has sworn to be a true gargoyle and the other a chronic liar and villain. I have almost thrown away my legacy, my self - for her, when she has not taken a single step towards me. "A gargoyle can no more stop protecting the humans than breathing the air" just doesn't mix with "Whoever pulls the strings lets the puppets dance".
"And Vito? We ... came for him today, didn't we? How does he fit into this picture? Apart from the fact that you want to protect him." I wasn't quite sure if I wasn't going too far with that question. But Nash didn't seem to take offense either. He stubbed out the stump of his cigarette on the floor.
"Vito is a great kid. A special child. And not just because Graziella obviously took a perverse pleasure in letting him be a fanboy and at the same time keeps no secrets from him. Or few secrets. I don't know what she wants him to be? Whether she'll turn his love for gargoyles into hate someday, somehow when he's older and understands all the complicated shit between her and me and criminals and gargoyles better. Does she want him to fight us? Or kill me? Love that turns to disappointment can spawn burning hatred."
"I'm not sure that's what she has in mind with Vito."
"I'm not sure either. But she has something in mind for everyone. It wouldn't be the first time she's used Vito to play games with me ... or he's let himself be used. Graziella Dracon is just like that. She was a shrewd manipulative little devil as a child and as an adult- ohhhh, nothing is as it seems with her. She's good at the Xanatos Gambit. But just the thought of her using Vito as an active weapon against us, against me, would make me lose all sleep if I wouldn't petrify."
"Do you love him too? ... like, well like..."
I didn't even know how to finish that sentence. Could I imagine Nashville as a father? As a good father? Loving, patient, maybe a little snarky but really committed? After this evening at the latest, yes. Nash rubbed his hands together and then looked at his palms as if he was searching for something.
"Vito ... Yeah, I guess I came for him tonight. He ... the way he sings - it appeals to something in me that I haven't felt for many years. It sounds stupid because it's more than 150 years in the future, but I once knew someone who Vito's singing reminds me of. When Vito sings ... I feel ... safe and comforted."
Nashville snorted with laughter and shook his head. Yeah, you could forget that Nashville had been one of the Timedancers. They had convinced the government authorities and generally most people back then that they knew nothing of importance (what wars would be fought? Which enemies could perhaps be eliminated now before they grew up and became dangerous? What stock prices were high, what technology to invest in, etc.) or that time travel had done something to their brains that made them forget a lot (though it helped that with gargoyles, lie detectors didn't work very well). But Lex had told me that they knew more than they were letting on. After the divergence events of 1997, which had given Nashville its unloved nickname, the question was what of this future would come to pass anyway.
Nashville suddenly seemed sad and I couldn't help but lay a hand on his.
"That person must have meant a lot to you back then. So. In the future. His future. Your past. Oh man."
Nash patted my hand.
"Don't bother, Hercules. It's complicated shit. Yes. Aurelio meant a lot to me. While my heroric parents were saving the world, I was in his care. I was a kid and he was an old fucker and quite honestly, pretty senile. But he was always good to me and I don't know what's wrong with me that Vito reminds me of him with his singing and his smile and his quiet loving way, because Aurelio was an old guy with web-wings and a beak and his singing was brittle but - he sounded like home. That's why I try to come to every one of Vito's gigs. It almost has the same bond-soothing effect as when I stalk his mom or ... do other things around her.
He not only sings in the church choir, on the lower floor here there is a community theater and he plays in shows with grown-ups and steals all the thunder! I've heard him perform many times in the last three years. And yes, I say perform on purpose because he's really good. He's a bit of a stage hog in the nicest sense of the word and even though I know how shitty showbiz can be I wish he'd take that route rather than the mobster career path. His singing is fantastic for an eight-year-old. And I don't mean because he's cute and not afraid of the limelight like the other brats. I mean 1996 Micky Mouse Club Justin Timberlake fantastic. With real talent. Too bad you were out of it during the whole show and especially his solo."
"Maybe I can see him perform another time."
"You should. If you can avoid his murderous relatives."
We both laughed as the lights suddenly went out. And on again, and off again, and on again in a rapid sequence that felt like a signal. Nashville jumped to his feet and helped me stand up too.
"Was that-?" I began and Nash nodded.
"My secret tip, Nate. Always be on good terms with the floor and ground staff. Cleaners, delivery guys, janitors, waiters, bartenders. The people who are overlooked by others have remarkably many opportunities to open doors for you."
I nodded too and after he made sure I could stand on my own, checked my pupils again and asked me some health questions, he gave me a rough, chummy pat on the shoulder as he led me back to the door, up to the attic and out.
"More yada yada and relationship talk than I thought at the beginning of the night, huh? I didn't even want to talk about your package and you got me babbling about my pathetic Fee-fees again. Totally your fault, Herkules."
"Nothing about your heartbreak is even remotely pathetic, Nashville," i said thankful. It had done me good to talk to someone who could sympathize with me (to some extent) without being told to talk to Lex or deal with my problems immediately.
"Next time, you let me be cool and tough again, okay?"
"Sure."
I tied my scarf tighter as we stood outside.
"And now what? To the castle? Wait for your sweetheart?"
"Yes. I'd love to," I replied, looking longingly at the moon, which was just peeking out from behind some clouds. The moon was full in three nights and I imagined I could feel the pull of the trabant on my non-existent inner gargoyle. When I averted my eyes, I noticed that Nashville had followed my gaze and was now looking at the moon with a puzzled frown.
"Are you okay, Nash?"
"Yes. Everything's fine," he said.
Well - is this a men's evening ... Church choir AND talking about relationships and feelings - I emasculated both of them without them noticing. But don't worry. I'll give them both a real guys' night out in a really crappy bar and get them both really wasted ... Yes, that sounds more like Nash. And yes, of course this church exists and there's even a theater (Theater at the Blessed Sacrament) on the lower floor - I have eyewitnesses!
Thanks for reading, Q.T.