Thanks to the ever generous TheFruitBat for beta reading once again! :-)
— — —
If he possessed an ounce of pity for Nicholas, LaCroix would stake him in his sleep and save him from the horror and misery of the apocalypse hurtling toward them. But pity is for the weak, and neither of them are that.
Not that Nicholas hasn't made the possibility easy enough, were LaCroix so inclined. But he's not.
He's not.
Propped against the wall in a corner downstairs, LaCroix had seen a carved wooden walking stick. He had brushed his fingers over its smooth, polished surface, and wondered why Nicholas would keep such a thing. Another one of his self-punishing mementos, no doubt. Beautifully crafted, easily weaponized. A swift blow to the slight left of Nicholas's chest, the wood pushed through the tissue and muscle, all the way through… deadly. In the right hands, at least. Not that those hands would be his.
(Certain about that?)
(Certain.)
(Almost.)
Now on the second floor, LaCroix slips off his shoes and steps into Nicholas's bedroom, closing the door quietly behind him and blocking out the sun's burning rays streaming in through the skylight. In the early hours of morning, the light had been diffuse and indirect. Bearable. But as the sun had risen higher, the light had intensified, not enough to scorch LaCroix, not quite, but enough to sting incessantly at his skin like a swarm of angry wasps.
He will not tolerate that when he doesn't have to. And he doesn't have to. He refuses to spend the rest of the day suffering…
(Alone.)
…under those rays.
In the bedroom, only the faint red glow of the electric digits on the bedside clock and the slight bleed of daylight at the edges of the closed door and heavy drapes covering the window provide any light at all. Though that is plenty for LaCroix's keen eyes.
With steps as silent as a well-kept secret, he approaches the bed to observe Nicholas in repose. Nicholas's face is neutral, and his breath soft and even. Peaceful. Tranquil. Calm. An illusion. The beads of blood collecting in a sweat on Nicholas's brow tell a different story. Even in the stillness and sanctuary of rest, he has found a way to torment himself.
(Typical.)
LaCroix would dab the blood away, but he had left his jacket, along with the handkerchief tucked inside its inner pocket, downstairs. Not that that is the only option. He reaches, fingers tentatively hovering over Nicholas's forehead.
(Just a taste, perhaps.)
Before he can act on the impulse, Nicholas wakes with a start and looks up at him, irritation in his eyes.
(Also typical.)
Almost like an accusation: "What are you doing in here?"
"I must say, Nicholas," LaCroix chides, "I'm somewhat alarmed by how easy it was to approach you in your sleep. What if I'd been a hunter like your friend, O'Neal?"
(Who should be dead.)
(Who would have found your foolish memento downstairs.)
(Not that it matters. Not now.)
"O'Neal is not my friend," Nicholas mutters. "And that doesn't answer my question." He sits up, and rubs his eyes and then his face. When his fingers brush against the moisture on his forehead, he pulls his hands away, glancing at them with a frown. He wipes the sleeve of his pajamas across his forehead and dries his fingertips on the front.
(Such a waste.)
Nicholas, tone accusatory again, repeats, "What are you doing in here?"
"Your offered accommodations leave something to be desired," LaCroix says dryly. "Not exactly vampire-friendly, are they?"
"Did it occur to you that might be intentional?"
(Of course.)
(But…) "I doubt you relegate Janette to your sofa and the daylight."
Nicholas rolls his eyes and rises from his bed. "You're the one who invited yourself over, so you get what you get."
Nicholas moves to a bureau, opening a drawer, and selecting a fresh pajama top made of the same black silk as the one that he wears with the blood now smeared on its sleeve and front. He pulls the soiled top over his head, exposing the pale skin underneath and the body frozen in time…
(Exquisite.)
…before putting on the clean one.
Not taking his eyes off Nicholas, LaCroix remarks on the subject at hand, "You could stand to be more hospitable. Cow's blood and an uncovered skylight? I suppose you enjoy my discomfort."
Nicholas turns to face him with a slight smirk on his lips. "Maybe."
(Of course.)
"The end of the world will deliver that in spades," LaCroix says lightly. "I suppose that's a silver lining for you."
Nicholas frowns and then gestures to a dark, plush chair in the corner with Nicholas's clothes from the night before neatly draped over the back. "That's available."
As Nicholas moves past him, LaCroix catches his arm and asks softly, "Do you think it's strange that I want to be with you?"
Nicholas shakes his head and pulls his arm back. "What is strange is you thinking that I want that too."
LaCroix sighs, goes to the chair, and sits down while Nicholas slides back under the bed covers and shuts his eyes. LaCroix crosses his legs, leans back, and watches. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
(For what? An invitation?)
(Yes, like it used to be, not a moment ago.)
(Centuries ago.)
(Same thing.)
Nicholas says, eyes still closed, "You're staring at me. I can feel it."
"I cannot even sit quietly correctly, it seems."
Nicholas sits up again, looks at LaCroix, and grumbles irritably, "You know what? You sleep here, I'll make do downstairs. I have a decent tolerance for light."
(Ever the martyr.)
Nicholas rises and opens the door, but as he steps out of the room, LaCroix hears him take a pained intake of air through his teeth. Under his skin, LaCroix feels those familiar stings from the midday sun, fainter though because it is Nicholas's pain he feels, not his own.
LaCroix, amused: "A decent tolerance for light, you say?"
Nicholas steps back into the bedroom and closes the door, looking at LaCroix with irritation once more. "You stranded yourself here and have somehow made it my problem."
"Do you think you might not so disdain my company when the rest of the world starts dying around us? When we're all we have left?"
Nicholas does not answer, glancing away.
(That hurts.)
But it is only Nicholas's ignorance. He simply does not understand, not yet. The end of the world is not real for him. He can't see it, hear it, smell it. He won't understand until impact, when the world is set on fire, when the city burns, when the choking fumes extinguish the screams of those whose flesh melts away as molten ash rains down from the sky.
Nicholas has never lost anything in that way, but LaCroix can picture it all too well. Another place, another time, another apocalypse, and his last moments before…
(Life can cheat death. It will always find a way.)
…being given a choice.
(Live or die. What is your decision?)
There would be no choice this time around.
Not for him, anyway.
After the fires from impact consume themselves, then will come the cold, frozen wasteland. That will be new. Any remnants of mortal life unlucky enough to survive the infernos will freeze instead. And vampires? They will be trapped in the icy center of Dante's Hell, devoured again and again by a devil known as starvation.
Until then, Nicholas…
(Live.)
(As we're meant to.)
(While you can.)
(With me.)
Nicholas returns to the bed and sits on the edge, facing LaCroix in the chair, but still not quite meeting his eyes, expression contemplative. As if he knows something of what LaCroix is thinking. But he can't possibly. He never learned that particular skill.
(Was never taught.)
LaCroix breaks the silence, insisting, "Things between us have not been so bad this past year."
(At times, even good.)
That statement catches Nicholas's attention.
And vitriol.
"Oh, really? Let's see…" Nicholas counts down on his fingers: "You tried to frame me for murder to force me to move on, killed a suspect, orchestrated events that led to the death of another detective." He pauses before adding, "You were going to kill or bring over Natalie, just to spite me."
(True, true, true, not entirely true. That last one was a bargain you made, not spite.)
(And as to it all, so what?)
"But yes," Nicholas continues, sarcasm in his tone that LaCroix does not appreciate, "I suppose things haven't been so bad, if you set the bar low enough."
(It's been lower.)
"Perhaps," LaCroix says casually, masking his annoyance at Nicholas's list of petty complaints, "if you're so dissatisfied with the prospect of my company, you'd like to finish what you started a few years ago and finally dispatch me to Hell?"
LaCroix keeps his voice cool, but in the place in his chest where he sometimes still feels the phantom pain of a flaming stake pressing into his heart…
(Fury.)
"No, I don't want that," Nicholas responds quickly, softly, sincerely.
(Liar.)
"Besides," Nicholas says, a forced lightness in his tone, "I thought you were too old and powerful for that."
LaCroix leans forward, staring intently into Nicholas's eyes as he calmly explains, "Perhaps if you had paid attention, forced the stake all the way through, made certain that I burned, and scattered my ashes on the wind…" He pauses and leans back again before he continues, voice still even, "You might have succeeded and may yet do so."
(Not true.)
(I think.)
Nicholas's body stiffens slightly and he's quiet for a moment. "I've never heard you talk like this."
"In some ways, if you could do it, you would be doing me a favor," LaCroix says, and then laughs as if it's funny.
(Maybe it is.)
Nicholas shakes his head and lies back down. "Get some rest."
They are silent again in the dark, LaCroix watching Nicholas, whose eyes are closed once more.
(Wait for it.)
(Wait for it.)
"You're doing it again," Nicholas complains, eyes still shut.
LaCroix smiles and rises to his feet and approaches the edge of the bed, standing over Nicholas, the moment suddenly and comfortingly familiar. A medieval bedchamber in Paris in 1228, a modern bedroom in Toronto in 1995. Their lives do not change, only the times and the settings.
Nicholas opens his eyes and LaCroix says, "Being here with you… I'm reminded of the night I brought you across." He sits on the edge of the bed. "You welcomed me then."
Nicholas rolls onto his side and props himself on an elbow, looking at LaCroix. "You were a talented salesman." He pauses, thoughtful, before adding, "And, of course, you had Janette. You both made quite a team." They are quiet for a moment before Nicholas says, "Sometimes I wonder, would you have brought me over without her? Would I have let you?"
LaCroix shakes his head. "I would not have even known you existed. You owe your immortal life to her as much as you do to me. But for some reason, you resent me for it and not her."
"You wanted to possess me."
(That hasn't changed.)
LaCroix says, "So did she."
Nicholas sighs. "And if I had refused your offer that night?"
"You know what would have happened."
(A shallow grave.)
"After the things that I had seen in war…" Nicholas's voice fades and his eyes become distant. LaCroix knows what it is like for the mind to drift back to before. His own mind has been doing the same of late: a mountain of fire, the earth shaking violently, small hands on his neck, fangs piercing his throat, and…
(We are truly eternal?)
(Yes, Father.)
(Stop it. Stop thinking about her.)
LaCroix clears his throat, and Nicholas returns to the moment, gaze refocusing. "It wouldn't have been the worst thing," Nicholas says, "if it had all ended for me in Janette's arms."
(Or mine?)
LaCroix responds, "Fortunately for you, it was a beginning, not an end."
"I know you see it that way."
Irritated, more bitter than he intends: "Well, now, it really is the end. Congratulations."
Nicholas shoves the covers down, slides his legs over the edge of the bed, and shifts over to sit next to LaCroix. He puts a hand on LaCroix's shoulder.
(Don't flinch.)
Nicholas asks gently, guilelessly, kindly, "Are you afraid?"
LaCroix stares at the floor, not looking at him.
(Coward.)
Nicholas squeezes his shoulder and admits for them both, "Me too."
LaCroix turns his head to face Nicholas, and then he reaches a hand to momentarily trace his fingers along the younger vampire's jawline.
(Don't. Flinch.)
"How long do you suppose Janette and I will have?" Nicholas asks.
"I'm not sure," LaCroix answers. "Longer than most. It could take a century."
(Or two. Or three.)
"Of starving to death," Nicholas says with a shudder.
"I suppose that our kind will turn on one another, in the end," LaCroix says calmly, as if the topic is academic in nature, purely an abstraction. "In the cold, in the dark, killing one another to eliminate the competition, hunting one another for any drop of blood that may yet exist. It will drive us all to madness, I expect."
"And the three of us? Will we turn on each other?"
(Yes.)
"No, not us," LaCroix assures. He threads his fingers through Nicholas's hair and around the back of Nicholas's head. "I could never kill you."
(A lie?)
Nicholas snorts and pulls his head back, away from LaCroix's touch. "You have threatened it often enough. And very recently, I might add: Valentine's Day."
"I only wanted you to believe I would do it."
Nicholas is silent for a beat. "That night…" He sighs. "I suppose I could admit to you now if I do love Natalie. It wouldn't matter anyway, not now."
(Not that it ever mattered. Mortals die.)
(And now, so do we.)
(Most of us, anyway.)
Nicholas continues, "She wants me to bring her across. She thinks it's her only chance."
"She would be among the first driven to madness, like all the youngest ones, the first to starve, and the first the older of us might prey upon."
(Bring some over now to feed upon later. There's a thought.)
"I refused," Nicholas says, "but she's angry, desperate."
(Aren't we all.)
Pragmatic, LaCroix suggests, "You should tell her that you will do it."
"What?"
"Tell her you will, but then drain her. Let her believe you. Just as you'd have gladly died in…
(My.)
…Janette's arms, so too would your doctor friend die in yours. And I know you would enjoy it."
"I don't kill them anymore…
(Oh, but you will.)
...I would rather die."
(That too.)
To LaCroix's surprise, Nicholas picks up LaCroix's left hand in his right, lacing their fingers together. Quiet for a moment, then Nicholas's plaintive ask: "In the world that's to come, don't let me lose control. If that happens…"
(When, not if.)
(There will be no stopping you.)
(Good.)
"It won't happen," LaCroix says and squeezes Nicholas's hand. "Though, admittedly, control has never been a strength of yours. Or Janette's. I'm grateful for that."
Nicholas, incredulous: "Grateful?"
"If she'd had the control, Janette would have brought you across. And I'm glad it was me." LaCroix says, thinking again of Paris and a mortal Nicholas laid out before him, vulnerable, receptive, eager. "I'll always have you in a way no one else ever will. You know what that's like, to have a mortal's whole life inside you…
(Every breath, every moment, everything.)
(Not that that's necessarily anything special.)
(Except it was him.)
…and then to give it back." Wistful: "You turned quickly, do you remember?"
Nicholas nods. "I remember everything about that night."
"Some of us are slower to cross over than others, but you…" LaCroix pauses. "You burned with a passion for what we are, for us, for the blood."
(That hasn't changed. Not really.)
LaCroix continues, "When I opened my veins to you, you would have drained me completely if I had let you." With affection: "No control, from the very beginning."
Nicholas is quiet for several moments before saying, "Everyone is losing control right now, in one way or another. Mortals. Us. Our kind are leaving bodies all over the city."
"Why shouldn't they?"
"Janette said the same thing. But there has to be more, a solution, something," Nicholas entreats, desperation underscoring his words. "Maybe the scientists are wrong." Nicholas falls silent once more, his face etched with a deep, troubled look. "I'm afraid, LaCroix. I don't want to lose control."
(That's exactly what you want.)
(And it's been too long.)
LaCroix releases Nicholas's hand, and raises his own, turning over his wrist and looking at it. "As I said, if I'd let you, you would have drained me completely that night." He extends the wrist to Nicholas. An offering. Softly: "I'd let you do it now."
For a split second, a golden glow flickers in Nicholas's eyes.
(Far too long for you and me.)
LaCroix, invitingly, urgently, reasonably: "What use is control to you at this moment? Between us, what is there to fear?"
"I don't want that," Nicholas says, but that golden flame in his eyes ignites again, and this time it continues burning.
(I have you.)
"Very well," LaCroix says and starts to withdraw his wrist, but Nicholas grabs it. Still, doubt and a question linger in his eyes. LaCroix gives a slight nod, encouraging.
(Do it.)
Nicholas hesitates for another moment, but then brings LaCroix's wrist to his lips and bites down, fangs piercing a vein. LaCroix sucks in a breath with the sublime sensation of soft lips on his skin and twin points of pain in this flesh.
Nicholas keeps his eyes locked on LaCroix's as he drinks, and LaCroix feels his own fangs emerge. Then he senses his own eyes shift in a blink, and at that moment, Nicholas appears almost startled. Nicholas breaks his gaze, dropping LaCroix's wrist and rising from his seat on the bed. He paces for a few moments—back and forth, back and forth, back and forth—agitated, not looking at LaCroix.
(Here we go. Guilt, regret, recriminations in 3… 2…)
Nicholas turns to face LaCroix, standing above him, his eyes still shining gold in the dark.
(...1?)
In a flash, Nicholas shoves him backwards, hard, knocking the wind out of him. LaCroix gasps and moves to sit back up, but Nicholas places a hand on his chest, forcing him down and demanding, "Stay down."
LaCroix catches his breath, and then half smiles as he issues a challenge: "Make me."
Forceful hand still in place, Nicholas climbs on top of him on the bed, straddling his waist, pinning him completely. With his free hand, Nicholas traces a few fingers like feathers down LaCroix's jaw to the top of the high collar of his shirt, above the base of his throat. In a vampire-quick series of movements, Nicholas rips the collar open, roughly turns LaCroix's head aside, and leans forward, a faint growl in his throat, before he sinks his fangs into LaCroix's neck. A euphoric exhalation escapes from LaCroix's lips.
(That is more like it.)
Draining a vampire is not like draining a mortal. Mortal hearts, hot with life and beating rapidly with fear or desire or both, pump the blood to a short and rapturous end. But vampire hearts, cold and languid, take time to move the blood through the system, and there is no end. The agonizing sluggishness can be hastened by actively sucking at the veins and arteries, pulling in the blood instead of waiting for it to be pushed. But Nicholas does not do that. LaCroix feels as Nicholas allows for the natural flow, drinking quietly and patiently in the dark.
Slowly.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
LaCroix starts to lose feeling in his hands, his feet, his arms, his legs, their weight and strength replaced with a tingling and then numbness. Strangely and pleasantly, he becomes powerless. With each swallow, he becomes ever more at Nicholas's mercy.
(But that's always been true.)
Soon, the only sensation left to him is the exquisite pang of Nicholas's fangs in his throat. Unable to move, LaCroix manages to whisper hoarsely, with a slight mocking tone, "Now's your moment if you finally want to be done with me."
Nicholas pulls away and sits up, his golden eyes scrutinizing. After a moment, he bends forward again and murmurs against LaCroix's ear, "Don't tempt me."
Then Nicholas brings his mouth to LaCroix's, and LaCroix can taste his own blood on Nicholas's lips. Nicholas slides his tongue into LaCroix's mouth and lets it slice along one of LaCroix's fangs, releasing a small offering. Delicious, dark, dangerous.
In that taste: molten rage… hatred… burning hotter than the sun, burning for everything that they are and everything they've done. LaCroix would excoriate him for it, but he cannot speak, can barely even breathe as Nicholas's lips continue to crush against his.
Then LaCroix tastes more, another incandescent fire just as strong. An inextinguishable hunger bound to need and desire and…
(Love?)
…wrapped inextricably with the feeling that none of it can ever be sated, that there can never be enough. Nicholas wants it all and LaCroix will give it to him if only he will accept it, accept what he is, accept…
(You're mine.)
…what they are.
Nicholas pulls away, his eyes now twin embers smoldering red in the dark. Every feeling in Nicholas's blood twines and frays between them, knotting them together and tearing them apart in equal measure. Confusion, chaos, longing. Nicholas wants everything, but cannot bear it. LaCroix swallows the last taste of those contradictions.
Barely above a whisper, LaCroix demands, "Why do you do this to yourself?"
"I don't know." Nicholas answers, his voice dark and low and strained. "But I feel it."
(Torture.)
Nicholas raises his own wrist to his lips and tears into it before pressing it against LaCroix's mouth, an inversion of the night LaCroix brought him over. Needing no more encouragement than Nicholas had that night, LaCroix begins to drink, pulling at the vein.
With each swallow, LaCroix's strength returns, flowing into his limbs like the incoming tide. He shoves aside Nicholas's wrist and reaches forward, grabbing tightly onto the front of Nicholas's top and drawing him down. Sliding his arms around Nicholas's back, he pulls the younger vampire against his chest, cold heart to cold heart, and bites into his neck. Without hesitating, Nicholas does the same, but with urgency this time. Pulling, pulling, pulling.
They drain and replenish one another, exhausting and renewing themselves. Fear and consolation, rage and need, hate and love, desire and possession. Locked together in blood and darkness. Uncontrolled.
Again and again and again.
And again.
And again.
And…
LaCroix releases Nicholas. Drunk on him. Used up by him. Spent. Nicholas releases him as well, and they shift onto their sides, face to face in silence. LaCroix cups his fingers gently on Nicholas's cheek as Nicholas's eyes fade from red to gold to blue. With every sensation pulsing between them, with every ragged piece of their souls drowning in each other's blood, there are a thousand things they could say…
(I know you.)
(I love you.)
(I want you.)
(I hate you.)
(I need you.)
…but they don't.
Nicholas drifts to sleep without another word, expression becoming relaxed and serene, the same illusion as before. He does not stir as LaCroix places a hand on his chest just over his heart, a thin layer of cool, black silk between them. After several minutes, LaCroix feels a single, strong beat. With one finger, he traces a large circle around the spot where that echo of life resounded. Then a smaller circle. Then smaller. Until he taps a single spot. Bullseye.
Before the end of the world, before Nicholas becomes everything he hates and fears, everything LaCroix wants him to be… LaCroix could release him. Quickly, easily, mercifully.
But that would be pity.
Pity is for the weak.
And neither of them are that.
— — —
The End
