If he closed his ice-blue eyes he could remember vividly one precious moment, so very long ago.

The playful expression on the boyish features.  Blue eyes sparkling like sapphires in the firelight.  Fangs dropped to pierce a soft, full lip.  A ruby single drop of blood running over the smooth chin.  Bending to lick it up lest the nectar be wasted.  Stealing a kiss from his new-born’s mouth.

Harshly he banished the memory.  It had no place here tonight.

He was alive, despite his wilful son’s best efforts to deprive him of the eternity he’d thought to share with his child.

The battleground was set.

This city.  Full of life and energy.  He could feel it.  Once this round was over, perhaps he could stay here a while, let Nicholas find somewhere else to play at his mortal games.

This magnificent place was wasted on his wayward, morbid son.

Eight hundred years had brought them to this place.  Despite all that had gone between them, it would not end here.  Or perhaps because of it.

This was a pause in the chasing.  LaCroix had hoped that it would be a pleasurable one.  But it seemed, by Nicholas’ challenge that it was not to be.

Some small feeling of regret touched his dead heart, but he quashed that as quickly and brutally as he had the memory of happier times.

It was partially his fault.  He was not too arrogant to admit his mistake.  He held too hard, crushed with the strength of his possession that which he so needed to love.

Not that he would ever call it love.

Neither would Nicholas, he was sure.

The infuriating truth was that his stone cold heart still cared.

How could it not?

Into Nicholas he’d poured everything that he was.

He’d imbued his son with a millennia of knowledge, a hundred lifetimes of experience.

Still the Belgian demon had still spurned him.  Still his golden knight had attacked and killed finally him.

He was too old to die.

Standing on the deserted pier, the master vampire drew himself up to his full height.  He let the beast free within him and caste out for his damned son.

*

Nick turned once more and set off back in the other direction, pacing the length of his loft for another countless time.

He’d been pacing for an hour.  The only light came from the clear night sky outside, through the large windows.

The vampire was singing in his mind, strumming hungrily on his nerves.

The moonlight caught the gold flecks in his eyes, the only sign that he was no longer completely human.

His control was testament to how very long he’d not been human for.

He felt a vibration in his mind, stronger this time.  It was a sensation he’d believed lost to him nearly a year ago.  But these passed few days, he’d been feeling the mental link awaken.

Sleepless days and long, dark hours he’d been distracted by it.

He knew now, for certain, that LaCroix was alive.  And tonight, LaCroix was calling for him.

Muttering to himself, an abstractly human gesture, in a language long dead, he broke off his pacing and crossed to the fridge.

Opening he door, he reached under a false shelf and pulled out an unlabelled bottle.  One of the ones he kept hidden from Nat’s prying eyes.

Pulling the cork from the neck with his teeth, he spat it across the kitchenette before lifting the bottle to his lips and up-ending it.

He took a long drink, letting the taste roll over his denied tongue, letting the energy infuse him.  He felt the crackle along his nerves, through his bones, the strength suffusing him.

He knew what LaCroix wanted, what the old vampire expected.

They would fight.   But neither one of them would attempt to kill the other.  LaCroix couldn’t kill his precious Nicholas.  Or he’d have torn his head from his body years ago.

As for Nick, he had already tried that path and found it didn’t suit him.  As much as he hated to admit it, realizing his master was alive had lifted a great burden of guilt from his shoulders.  How many innocent lives were on his conscience?  And yet LaCroix’s life had laid heaviest on his soul.

It had haunted him to have killed the one who’d made him.  To have denied his own sire the eternity he’d expected.  To have severed the mental bond that linked them.

He should have known that nothing was enough to rid him of LaCroix.  Not a stake, not fire.  Not hope.

And now… he was glad.

Allowing himself finally to open up to the touch of his father’s mind, Nicholas pondered the options available.

Yes, they could fight.

But there were other ways to spend a night.

*

They rested in the white silk of LaCroix’s bed.  What might have been a macabre scene had somehow, inadvertently, been avoided and the only signs of what had transpired were several spots of blood that marked the place where they had coupled in the true vampire sense.

Nick lay on his front, his arms folded on the white sheets, cheek rested against the backs of his hands.  His eyes were closed in rest, face turned from his lover.

Close beside him, touching from shoulder to foot along the length of the graceful forms, LaCroix lay on his side, relaxed, sated.

One of the old vampire’s arms was stretched out along the pillows above Nicholas’ head, fingers gently teasing the light hairs on his son’s forearm.  An intimate gesture.  One the world might not have believed him capable of.

Nick opened his eyes, smiling to himself, watching his father’s fingers tracing patterns on his pale skin.

He parted his lips to speak, but LaCroix beat him to it without realising he had.

“I was prepared for a fight, mon fils,” the ancient murmured, not in the least displeased at the unexpected events of the night.

Nick closed his eyes against the candlelight.

“I couldn’t be bothered, LaCroix,” he answered carelessly.  “A cathartic battle or a wild love-making session, either way we’d end up with our teeth in one another’s throats.”

LaCroix almost chuckled.  He would never, he suspected, in all the time they had, cease to be amazed at the turns in his favourite’s whims.

Moving lazily, LaCroix settled his other hand against the small of Nicholas’ back.

“I would do anything to appease you, Nicholas.”

“I know, Lucien.”

“Even accept this… very pleasurable interlude as an apology for your attempt on my life.”

Nick lifted his head, turned to rest his other cheek on his hands and face his master.

“So much nicer than fighting, don’t you agree.  So much more…” he stretched, all the way down his lithe body to his toes, “…satisfying.”

LaCroix couldn’t find fault with that.

“You should stay here, in Toronto,” Nick continued.  “It’s a wonderful city, full of so many possibilities.”

Leaning down to kiss his child’s lips, LaCroix settled himself, half on-top of Nicholas’ cool form.

“I was considering prolonging my visit.  It does indeed… hum with energy.  And if this accord could remain between us for a time, maybe we could explore the potentials together?”

It was reaching, but LaCroix had once again been reminded of why he’d chosen Nicholas De Brabant to be his companion and for a while, he didn’t really want to let go again.

Nicholas took a deep, unnecessary breath, and shifted until he was comfortable under his father’s weight.

“I think I could consider that.”

LaCroix let that one go.  For now.
 

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