unnamed II
elfin
Crouching at his son's bedside, LaCroix took Nicholas' hand into his own,
raising it to his lips. He kissed the cold skin tenderly, tracing a
line across the palm with the tip of his tongue.
"Mon Nichola.... What will you bring you back to us?"
Through twin slashes in their wrists he had transfused his creation with
his own blood. He'd repeated the process again and again yet still the
coma had a hold of the mind and body he treasured so deeply.
"How about a story?" he suggested to himself. "Now let me think...
ah, yes. The tale of two vampires...."
"Once upon a time there was a powerful vampire called... Lucien. In
mortality he had been a fierce general in the armies of the Emperor of Rome.
He had known only misery, which he masked under a steel veil of brutality
so well-fitting that even he began to forgot it was there. He considered
himself all-powerful, considered himself above the gods, above all of creation.
One of his conquests had borne him a daughter, and it was she who, when the
great empire fell under the eruption of Vesuvius, saved his life by bringing
him across to the dark.
"Years later, as a vampire, he took a daughter of his blood, and a long
time after that he took a son.
"The first time he saw the crusader his imagination was captured.
He became so enraptured with the blond beauty that he sent his daughter to
win his knight's heart. He knew such a man would only come to a beautiful
woman and so he used her to lure him, to draw him closer, closer until the
knight himself was captured.
"For seven nights his daughter allowed their crusader to woo her.
And then the night came that the gallant Nicholas De Brabant was invited
to her bed and offered a great gift. An eternity of nights spent in
passion with his princess, a never-ending life which would cheat nature,
cheat the church for which he had inflicted so much suffering and in turn
endured its equal.
"So promised, the knight could not deny his lust for the woman who stood
before him. And so he gave his free consent to the one introduced as
Lucien LaCroix, the one who would be the source of his eternal life.
Consent given, Lucien took the knight, savagely biting into his neck and drinking
the blood that coursed through his veins. The blood of so many mortals
had passed the lips of the ancient vampire, men, women, children. But
none cracked open the cold, dead heart as the blood of this knight.
For a moment, Lucien was frightened. Never before had he felt the
instant desire that he felt for this mortal man. To bring him across
would be to have him for all eternity... and yet to bring him across would
be to enslave himself forever.
"He battled with the voices in his mind as he drank, taking all that was
Nicholas into him, feeding off the mortal dreams and desires, hopes and terrors
that had been with this one in life. Now, in death, his being was translated
into images, fleeting sensations that Lucien became a part of as Nicholas
became a part of him.
"Lucien drained his knight, all but the last drops of blood in his veins.
And then he called Nicholas back to him. Time seemed to still as Lucien
and his daughter waited for their chosen one to return to their world.
Lucien knew his beloved was being offered the choice, to walk into the light
and die as a mortal. It was a light he had seen and turned his back
on as Pompeii had fallen all around him.
Desperate for his new son to do the same, Lucien put his wrist to his mouth
and savagely bit into it, holding the wound to his creation's lips, still
calling.
"In a moment of delight and triumph, his flesh was bitten into by the waking
vampire, his newly born child. Desire surged within him at the bite,
at the knowledge that this beautiful child was his for the rest of eternity.
"But all did not go as the ancient vampire had planned. For after
several centuries of his son's perfect company, Lucien began to notice that
Nicholas was unhappy with his gift of immortality, that his young vampire
was starting to wonder from the fold into which the elder had drawn him.
After many years as companions, brothers, lovers, father & son began
a terrible war.
"Believing himself to be evil, a detestable, unnatural creature with no
right to live on the earth, Nicholas started to search for a cure to the
vampirism that infected him. And unable to let go his heart's most
desperate desire, Lucien followed him, foiling his quest at every turn.
"The battles they fought became more bitter and violent each time they clashed.
Their names became known within communities the globe over. Vampires
avoided becoming entwined in the fights at all costs and those who did become
twisted in the ongoing war regretted their actions deeply.
"Yet... as bloody and vicious as the fighting was, as devious and devilish
as the plans they made were, Lucien and Nicholas still remembered the times
when they were not at war, when their lives were filled differently.
And once in a while they would seek and find a cautious peace between them.
"On one such occasion they found themselves in Paris, in the very city in
which Lucien had given his son the gift of immortality some centuries before.
The castle was a ruin, cold and dank. The walls had crumbled through
neglect and no one cared any longer about the proud residence Lucien had once
called his own.
"Together they walked, in silence through the damp stone corridors until
they happened upon the very room in which Lucien had first tasted of his beloved
knight. The stone slab, which had then been covered in silks and satins,
now stood cold and dirty, weathering the storms of time and nature for the
roof above it was now gone and it was exposed to the elements.
"They stood face to face by that which had once been a cradle. And
Nicholas reached out to take his father's hand and raise it to his lips.
'Mon Pere,' he murmured, and the ancient heart all but dead within the elder
fairly sang with joy. For those words had not been uttered in the exquisite
tones and timbres of his child's voice for a very long time. Joy swiftly
became elation as the touch to his hand by those gentle fingers turned to
a softer touch by wetted lips.
"Lucien could do naught but stare as his golden child took each digit in
turn between his silken lips and suckled upon them, sweeping his tongue across
the tip of each in a tease Lucien could barely stand.
"So enraptured was the ancient vampire that only belatedly did he question
his son's actions, first in query and then in anger, anger that perhaps his
desires had been read and this was some cruel trick to endanger his sanity.
Yet Nicholas reassured his master that all was well, that this indeed was
a time of accord between them and asked if not during this time they couldn't
fulfil their shared need?
"Lucien could not find the words in his mind to voice what was almost bursting
from his heart. Never before he had been so touched, so affected by
anything asked of him. Agreement was inherent, he assumed, Nicholas
was not so mindless to believe that his father would turn down his offer.
But still Lucien found it necessary to utter a single 'yes' in answer.
Yes. YES! Of course they could take from each other what was now
singing in the vibrations of the link that bound them.
"It mattered not that the place was cold, dark and so uninviting.
They could find all they needed in one another, that they knew for certain
for even in the bitterest times of their wars, there had been pressures beyond
their control and not of their making that had sent each into the arms of
the other for safety and survival.
"This time though... this time was very different. There was no threat
here, no mortal army claiming to be doing the work of some fictitious god.
There was only the two of them. They did not cling to one another to
share strength, merely stood together, staring at one another as if strangers
sharing some intimate physical contact for the first time.
"Nicholas turned his father's hand in his grasp and held Lucien's gold-specked
gaze while he lowered his mouth to the palm of his master's hand and kissed
the pale flesh. A combination of reverence and utter wantoness schooled
the handsome features of his knight. And Lucien knew in that moment
why he had continued to fight the war against this child, why he could not
do as Nicholas asked so often and just let him go. Did Nicholas know
it too? Did his demon son realise the hold he had over his father's
very soul?
"Again, Nicholas called him 'Father', admitting the bond if not the possession
the term inferred. Lucien's heart threatened to explode. Their
war this time had been the most violent, the most cruel. They had both
committed crimes against one another that maybe now they regretted.
Perhaps now... perhaps they could right the wrongs just for tonight.
"Despite his great need, Lucien stood as a statue, entranced by his beloved's
actions. Nicholas had unfastened the cuff of the ancient's shirt and
was pushing the fine material up along the forearm, baring the pale skin for
his ministrations. His eyes dipping from his sire's face as they started
to change colour, his true nature emerging, finally free from its vicious
bonds. His fangs could be felt now against Lucien's flesh as they teased
the sensitive skin on the inside of his wrist. At the first prick of
a needle-sharp tooth, the ancient vampire moaned with leashed passion, raising
his free hand to touch the soft golden hair of his favourite child.
"When Nicholas bit deep, the exquisite pleasure, so reminiscent of his birthnight,
shook Lucien to his very core and he knew he could not go on fighting this
one that he loved so desperately. He decided to give his son his freedom,
just for a time."
"LaCroix...."
Looking up from where his arm covered the cold limb of his child's, the
wounds at their wrists joined, he smiled.
"Welcome back, Nicholas," he murmured softly.
fin
elfin
(just trying to pick them up again....)
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