Nicolas de Lenfent

Naomi Campbell for Givenchy S/S 1997 Couture

Svetlana Zakharova, Bolshoi Ballet

[posted by rapture & bliss]

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

Nicolas is quick to sneer.

“Don’t taunt me with false promises of companionship. But you have a point I would regret dismissing. Tell me what kind of master to be then, tomorrow at sundown. I’ll be hungry. Good day.”

He closes the door on Jeff’s face and sighs to himself. He’s lost any hand or semblance of control. What kind of master asks for leadership? Someone who will always be first violin, never conductor. The analogy makes him dive to the cot and let its small creaks and groans squeak his consciousness back and forth. After two hundred years, the tidy homunculus of a perfect little gentleman failed to rematerialize after Jeff’s struggles so thoroughly thrashed it. Instead, Nicolas sleeps underneath a level of consciousness he finally lets himself embrace.

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

At that, I stand up.

Is this all in?

“Fuck you,” I growl again. “I earn honest money all on my own, I always have. He can pay his own goddamn bills now and I swear, /Nicolas/ I’ll drag you out into the noon-day fucking sun if you try to interfere with him.”

An unholy cackle of glee erupts from Nicolas’s mouth. He holds his middle, sitting at the piano bench, and kicks his feet in delight.

"You’re trying to give me rules? Oh, this is adorable,” he says, voice trailing off as he almost lovingly wraps fingers around Jeff’s throat again. This time, instead of pressing, he keeps the pressure on the underside of Jeff’s jaw and feels the hardness of the bone underneath. The strength of his vampire grip suggests Jeff is more likely to break his own neck if he struggles.

"Brave and stupid,” he says, eyes slitting in fondness as he smiles. “And loyal.”

"So I will disabuse your faulty imagination, Jeffrey, and say I could kill your entire family and nobody would even pretend to hear Alexander’s protests. So think this year before you try to threaten something that will crush you in its sleep at its weakest moment.”

“Are you trying to shock me?” I sneer right back. It feels like if I so much as move my eyes in my head, the pressure from his hand will shift and break me. I stare at him. 

“You’re the only one who’s been playing,” I tell him. “Every night that I wake up alive I’m relieved. With you in the next room, I close my eyes wondering if they’ll ever open again. Why do you think I wait until the sun rises to sleep? And wake before it sets?”  

At this admission, the vampire relaxes his grip, no longer threatening to make Jeff’s eyes bulge from their sockets with a crack of bone.

“You should always feel that way,” he says calmly with a reassured nod of satisfaction, “especially after you are dead.”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of gasping in relief. 

“Why does it have to be that way? Why do you have to have to threaten me, tease me, fucking torture me all the time, huh? Can’t we just...” I make a gesture between us, “truce? Sometimes it almost feels like we get along! I can’t tell what’s a trick and what’s a test anymore, can’t you just trust that...that my fucking life is on the line here and I’m not going to screw this up for anything? Can’t you just let me be here for you?” 

“I don’t need anyone!”

The snarl comes out stronger than he intends.

His vision blurs red. “You couldn’t possibly understand. It’s just the way of the world.”

“Oh so I’m just a favour to Alexander? You’d work a whole year with me just to please him? Bullshit. You enjoy me. You want me. The /world/ can be any way you want it to be in your own home, /Maestro/!”

Something in the line of his back breaks. He slumps, then draws his sleeve carelessly across his eyes. He heads for his lonely room with the lonely cot.

“I’m tired,” he announces, before he turns back and adds cryptically. “I don’t want them to know. But if you think I want you and I like you, how does it sound when you tell me you don’t feel the same? Do you think it sounds good? Something to be proud of?”

I stand very still, as if his hand is still on my neck.

I see tears of rage.

“Is it very hard for you to not just kill me?” I accuse him of it more quietly. “You wring out my nerves and threaten the only person who means anything to me. We don’t have to be cruel to each other. I want this to be good for us. I want to care for you, I don’t want to fight with you. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“I’ve already tasted you. Of course it is very hard to not just kill you.”

He sighs, and shakes his head to himself at Jeff’s proposal.

“No, the last person who—no, I don’t know any other way,” replies the vampire, suddenly hiding his hands behind his back, looking like a caught schoolboy with his shoulders back. “You don’t even like me and you want to care for me?”

“It’s easier than fighting,” I tell him, quiet, rub a hand over my neck. “Easier than wondering when you’re going to lose patience with fighting me and kill me, or lose interest in me and...kill me.”

I blow air through my nose. “I don’t hate you, but you’re going to drive me insane by the end of the year if we keep this up. It’s been two weeks and...if I didn’t know what you taste like too, I’m sure I’d be dead.”

“It’s not so bad,” the vampire says with a bitter laugh. “I didn’t box you, at least. So what is it you want? To be my apprentice? For me to stop fucking you? To go hunting elsewhere? We had a contract. This bears Alexander’s witnessing.”

“I’m not sure I trust that you won’t box me, or-or I don’t know, cut out my tongue if I say the wrong thing, or cut off my hand if I touch you when you don’t want me to. The sex, i-it’s fine. If you need to fuck like that, I’d rather you get your use out of me than feel like you need to go elsewhere for it. I’ll gladly feed you if nothing else...” I watch him. 

“I think I know what you’re trying to show me about your world. But...can’t it be easier, at least between us? I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you wanted it too. Aren’t we...afforded some kind of luxury? Because of the contract? We have to spend this year together...are you really going to spending it trying your very best to break me?” 

“I thought that’s what maestros do,” Nicolas says almost helplessly. “That’s what they did to me. If the others knew I let a mortal...” He trails off, and grips the edges of his doorway. “It’s not...I’m tired.”

He looks at the cot and feels a trembling in his chest.

“Would you really drag me into the sun? In my own home?”

I look away and back. I think that much is safe anyway. 

“If you tried to hurt Jamie?” I lift a shoulder. “I’d do anything for him.” 

“You wouldn’t try to stay alive if he asked you to,” he retorts suddenly. “Not a willful boy like you.”

I blow a slow breath through my nose while I stare at him. 

“He refused to make me like him. He doesn’t care what happens to me, as long as he doesn’t have to be responsible.” 

“But if he gave a damn, would you grow old for him? I don’t think I would for my little brother, but he died and I didn’t,” replies the vampire, not without some grief. “I still wouldn’t trade any of it, not even the years of being boxed.”

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

At that, I stand up.

Is this all in?

“Fuck you,” I growl again. “I earn honest money all on my own, I always have. He can pay his own goddamn bills now and I swear, /Nicolas/ I’ll drag you out into the noon-day fucking sun if you try to interfere with him.”

An unholy cackle of glee erupts from Nicolas’s mouth. He holds his middle, sitting at the piano bench, and kicks his feet in delight.

"You’re trying to give me rules? Oh, this is adorable,” he says, voice trailing off as he almost lovingly wraps fingers around Jeff’s throat again. This time, instead of pressing, he keeps the pressure on the underside of Jeff’s jaw and feels the hardness of the bone underneath. The strength of his vampire grip suggests Jeff is more likely to break his own neck if he struggles.

"Brave and stupid,” he says, eyes slitting in fondness as he smiles. “And loyal.”

"So I will disabuse your faulty imagination, Jeffrey, and say I could kill your entire family and nobody would even pretend to hear Alexander’s protests. So think this year before you try to threaten something that will crush you in its sleep at its weakest moment.”

“Are you trying to shock me?” I sneer right back. It feels like if I so much as move my eyes in my head, the pressure from his hand will shift and break me. I stare at him. 

“You’re the only one who’s been playing,” I tell him. “Every night that I wake up alive I’m relieved. With you in the next room, I close my eyes wondering if they’ll ever open again. Why do you think I wait until the sun rises to sleep? And wake before it sets?”  

At this admission, the vampire relaxes his grip, no longer threatening to make Jeff’s eyes bulge from their sockets with a crack of bone.

“You should always feel that way,” he says calmly with a reassured nod of satisfaction, “especially after you are dead.”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of gasping in relief. 

“Why does it have to be that way? Why do you have to have to threaten me, tease me, fucking torture me all the time, huh? Can’t we just...” I make a gesture between us, “truce? Sometimes it almost feels like we get along! I can’t tell what’s a trick and what’s a test anymore, can’t you just trust that...that my fucking life is on the line here and I’m not going to screw this up for anything? Can’t you just let me be here for you?” 

“I don’t need anyone!”

The snarl comes out stronger than he intends.

His vision blurs red. “You couldn’t possibly understand. It’s just the way of the world.”

“Oh so I’m just a favour to Alexander? You’d work a whole year with me just to please him? Bullshit. You enjoy me. You want me. The /world/ can be any way you want it to be in your own home, /Maestro/!”

Something in the line of his back breaks. He slumps, then draws his sleeve carelessly across his eyes. He heads for his lonely room with the lonely cot.

“I’m tired,” he announces, before he turns back and adds cryptically. “I don’t want them to know. But if you think I want you and I like you, how does it sound when you tell me you don’t feel the same? Do you think it sounds good? Something to be proud of?”

I stand very still, as if his hand is still on my neck.

I see tears of rage.

“Is it very hard for you to not just kill me?” I accuse him of it more quietly. “You wring out my nerves and threaten the only person who means anything to me. We don’t have to be cruel to each other. I want this to be good for us. I want to care for you, I don’t want to fight with you. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“I’ve already tasted you. Of course it is very hard to not just kill you.”

He sighs, and shakes his head to himself at Jeff’s proposal.

“No, the last person who—no, I don’t know any other way,” replies the vampire, suddenly hiding his hands behind his back, looking like a caught schoolboy with his shoulders back. “You don’t even like me and you want to care for me?”

“It’s easier than fighting,” I tell him, quiet, rub a hand over my neck. “Easier than wondering when you’re going to lose patience with fighting me and kill me, or lose interest in me and...kill me.”

I blow air through my nose. “I don’t hate you, but you’re going to drive me insane by the end of the year if we keep this up. It’s been two weeks and...if I didn’t know what you taste like too, I’m sure I’d be dead.”

“It’s not so bad,” the vampire says with a bitter laugh. “I didn’t box you, at least. So what is it you want? To be my apprentice? For me to stop fucking you? To go hunting elsewhere? We had a contract. This bears Alexander’s witnessing.”

“I’m not sure I trust that you won’t box me, or-or I don’t know, cut out my tongue if I say the wrong thing, or cut off my hand if I touch you when you don’t want me to. The sex, i-it’s fine. If you need to fuck like that, I’d rather you get your use out of me than feel like you need to go elsewhere for it. I’ll gladly feed you if nothing else...” I watch him. 

“I think I know what you’re trying to show me about your world. But...can’t it be easier, at least between us? I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you wanted it too. Aren’t we...afforded some kind of luxury? Because of the contract? We have to spend this year together...are you really going to spending it trying your very best to break me?” 

“I thought that’s what maestros do,” Nicolas says almost helplessly. “That’s what they did to me. If the others knew I let a mortal...” He trails off, and grips the edges of his doorway. “It’s not...I’m tired.”

He looks at the cot and feels a trembling in his chest.

“Would you really drag me into the sun? In my own home?”

I look away and back. I think that much is safe anyway. 

“If you tried to hurt Jamie?” I lift a shoulder. “I’d do anything for him.” 

“You wouldn’t try to stay alive if he asked you to,” he retorts suddenly. “Not a willful boy like you.”

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

At that, I stand up.

Is this all in?

“Fuck you,” I growl again. “I earn honest money all on my own, I always have. He can pay his own goddamn bills now and I swear, /Nicolas/ I’ll drag you out into the noon-day fucking sun if you try to interfere with him.”

An unholy cackle of glee erupts from Nicolas’s mouth. He holds his middle, sitting at the piano bench, and kicks his feet in delight.

"You’re trying to give me rules? Oh, this is adorable,” he says, voice trailing off as he almost lovingly wraps fingers around Jeff’s throat again. This time, instead of pressing, he keeps the pressure on the underside of Jeff’s jaw and feels the hardness of the bone underneath. The strength of his vampire grip suggests Jeff is more likely to break his own neck if he struggles.

"Brave and stupid,” he says, eyes slitting in fondness as he smiles. “And loyal.”

"So I will disabuse your faulty imagination, Jeffrey, and say I could kill your entire family and nobody would even pretend to hear Alexander’s protests. So think this year before you try to threaten something that will crush you in its sleep at its weakest moment.”

“Are you trying to shock me?” I sneer right back. It feels like if I so much as move my eyes in my head, the pressure from his hand will shift and break me. I stare at him. 

“You’re the only one who’s been playing,” I tell him. “Every night that I wake up alive I’m relieved. With you in the next room, I close my eyes wondering if they’ll ever open again. Why do you think I wait until the sun rises to sleep? And wake before it sets?”  

At this admission, the vampire relaxes his grip, no longer threatening to make Jeff’s eyes bulge from their sockets with a crack of bone.

“You should always feel that way,” he says calmly with a reassured nod of satisfaction, “especially after you are dead.”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of gasping in relief. 

“Why does it have to be that way? Why do you have to have to threaten me, tease me, fucking torture me all the time, huh? Can’t we just...” I make a gesture between us, “truce? Sometimes it almost feels like we get along! I can’t tell what’s a trick and what’s a test anymore, can’t you just trust that...that my fucking life is on the line here and I’m not going to screw this up for anything? Can’t you just let me be here for you?” 

“I don’t need anyone!”

The snarl comes out stronger than he intends.

His vision blurs red. “You couldn’t possibly understand. It’s just the way of the world.”

“Oh so I’m just a favour to Alexander? You’d work a whole year with me just to please him? Bullshit. You enjoy me. You want me. The /world/ can be any way you want it to be in your own home, /Maestro/!”

Something in the line of his back breaks. He slumps, then draws his sleeve carelessly across his eyes. He heads for his lonely room with the lonely cot.

“I’m tired,” he announces, before he turns back and adds cryptically. “I don’t want them to know. But if you think I want you and I like you, how does it sound when you tell me you don’t feel the same? Do you think it sounds good? Something to be proud of?”

I stand very still, as if his hand is still on my neck.

I see tears of rage.

“Is it very hard for you to not just kill me?” I accuse him of it more quietly. “You wring out my nerves and threaten the only person who means anything to me. We don’t have to be cruel to each other. I want this to be good for us. I want to care for you, I don’t want to fight with you. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“I’ve already tasted you. Of course it is very hard to not just kill you.”

He sighs, and shakes his head to himself at Jeff’s proposal.

“No, the last person who—no, I don’t know any other way,” replies the vampire, suddenly hiding his hands behind his back, looking like a caught schoolboy with his shoulders back. “You don’t even like me and you want to care for me?”

“It’s easier than fighting,” I tell him, quiet, rub a hand over my neck. “Easier than wondering when you’re going to lose patience with fighting me and kill me, or lose interest in me and...kill me.”

I blow air through my nose. “I don’t hate you, but you’re going to drive me insane by the end of the year if we keep this up. It’s been two weeks and...if I didn’t know what you taste like too, I’m sure I’d be dead.”

“It’s not so bad,” the vampire says with a bitter laugh. “I didn’t box you, at least. So what is it you want? To be my apprentice? For me to stop fucking you? To go hunting elsewhere? We had a contract. This bears Alexander’s witnessing.”

“I’m not sure I trust that you won’t box me, or-or I don’t know, cut out my tongue if I say the wrong thing, or cut off my hand if I touch you when you don’t want me to. The sex, i-it’s fine. If you need to fuck like that, I’d rather you get your use out of me than feel like you need to go elsewhere for it. I’ll gladly feed you if nothing else...” I watch him. 

“I think I know what you’re trying to show me about your world. But...can’t it be easier, at least between us? I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you wanted it too. Aren’t we...afforded some kind of luxury? Because of the contract? We have to spend this year together...are you really going to spending it trying your very best to break me?” 

“I thought that’s what maestros do,” Nicolas says almost helplessly. “That’s what they did to me. If the others knew I let a mortal...” He trails off, and grips the edges of his doorway. “It’s not...I’m tired.”

He looks at the cot and feels a trembling in his chest.

“Would you really drag me into the sun? In my own home?”

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

At that, I stand up.

Is this all in?

“Fuck you,” I growl again. “I earn honest money all on my own, I always have. He can pay his own goddamn bills now and I swear, /Nicolas/ I’ll drag you out into the noon-day fucking sun if you try to interfere with him.”

An unholy cackle of glee erupts from Nicolas’s mouth. He holds his middle, sitting at the piano bench, and kicks his feet in delight.

"You’re trying to give me rules? Oh, this is adorable,” he says, voice trailing off as he almost lovingly wraps fingers around Jeff’s throat again. This time, instead of pressing, he keeps the pressure on the underside of Jeff’s jaw and feels the hardness of the bone underneath. The strength of his vampire grip suggests Jeff is more likely to break his own neck if he struggles.

"Brave and stupid,” he says, eyes slitting in fondness as he smiles. “And loyal.”

"So I will disabuse your faulty imagination, Jeffrey, and say I could kill your entire family and nobody would even pretend to hear Alexander’s protests. So think this year before you try to threaten something that will crush you in its sleep at its weakest moment.”

“Are you trying to shock me?” I sneer right back. It feels like if I so much as move my eyes in my head, the pressure from his hand will shift and break me. I stare at him. 

“You’re the only one who’s been playing,” I tell him. “Every night that I wake up alive I’m relieved. With you in the next room, I close my eyes wondering if they’ll ever open again. Why do you think I wait until the sun rises to sleep? And wake before it sets?”  

At this admission, the vampire relaxes his grip, no longer threatening to make Jeff’s eyes bulge from their sockets with a crack of bone.

“You should always feel that way,” he says calmly with a reassured nod of satisfaction, “especially after you are dead.”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of gasping in relief. 

“Why does it have to be that way? Why do you have to have to threaten me, tease me, fucking torture me all the time, huh? Can’t we just...” I make a gesture between us, “truce? Sometimes it almost feels like we get along! I can’t tell what’s a trick and what’s a test anymore, can’t you just trust that...that my fucking life is on the line here and I’m not going to screw this up for anything? Can’t you just let me be here for you?” 

“I don’t need anyone!”

The snarl comes out stronger than he intends.

His vision blurs red. “You couldn’t possibly understand. It’s just the way of the world.”

“Oh so I’m just a favour to Alexander? You’d work a whole year with me just to please him? Bullshit. You enjoy me. You want me. The /world/ can be any way you want it to be in your own home, /Maestro/!”

Something in the line of his back breaks. He slumps, then draws his sleeve carelessly across his eyes. He heads for his lonely room with the lonely cot.

“I’m tired,” he announces, before he turns back and adds cryptically. “I don’t want them to know. But if you think I want you and I like you, how does it sound when you tell me you don’t feel the same? Do you think it sounds good? Something to be proud of?”

I stand very still, as if his hand is still on my neck.

I see tears of rage.

“Is it very hard for you to not just kill me?” I accuse him of it more quietly. “You wring out my nerves and threaten the only person who means anything to me. We don’t have to be cruel to each other. I want this to be good for us. I want to care for you, I don’t want to fight with you. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“I’ve already tasted you. Of course it is very hard to not just kill you.”

He sighs, and shakes his head to himself at Jeff’s proposal.

“No, the last person who—no, I don’t know any other way,” replies the vampire, suddenly hiding his hands behind his back, looking like a caught schoolboy with his shoulders back. “You don’t even like me and you want to care for me?”

“It’s easier than fighting,” I tell him, quiet, rub a hand over my neck. “Easier than wondering when you’re going to lose patience with fighting me and kill me, or lose interest in me and...kill me.”

I blow air through my nose. “I don’t hate you, but you’re going to drive me insane by the end of the year if we keep this up. It’s been two weeks and...if I didn’t know what you taste like too, I’m sure I’d be dead.”

“It’s not so bad,” the vampire says with a bitter laugh. “I didn’t box you, at least. So what is it you want? To be my apprentice? For me to stop fucking you? To go hunting elsewhere? We had a contract. This bears Alexander’s witnessing.”

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

At that, I stand up.

Is this all in?

“Fuck you,” I growl again. “I earn honest money all on my own, I always have. He can pay his own goddamn bills now and I swear, /Nicolas/ I’ll drag you out into the noon-day fucking sun if you try to interfere with him.”

An unholy cackle of glee erupts from Nicolas’s mouth. He holds his middle, sitting at the piano bench, and kicks his feet in delight.

"You’re trying to give me rules? Oh, this is adorable,” he says, voice trailing off as he almost lovingly wraps fingers around Jeff’s throat again. This time, instead of pressing, he keeps the pressure on the underside of Jeff’s jaw and feels the hardness of the bone underneath. The strength of his vampire grip suggests Jeff is more likely to break his own neck if he struggles.

"Brave and stupid,” he says, eyes slitting in fondness as he smiles. “And loyal.”

"So I will disabuse your faulty imagination, Jeffrey, and say I could kill your entire family and nobody would even pretend to hear Alexander’s protests. So think this year before you try to threaten something that will crush you in its sleep at its weakest moment.”

“Are you trying to shock me?” I sneer right back. It feels like if I so much as move my eyes in my head, the pressure from his hand will shift and break me. I stare at him. 

“You’re the only one who’s been playing,” I tell him. “Every night that I wake up alive I’m relieved. With you in the next room, I close my eyes wondering if they’ll ever open again. Why do you think I wait until the sun rises to sleep? And wake before it sets?”  

At this admission, the vampire relaxes his grip, no longer threatening to make Jeff’s eyes bulge from their sockets with a crack of bone.

“You should always feel that way,” he says calmly with a reassured nod of satisfaction, “especially after you are dead.”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of gasping in relief. 

“Why does it have to be that way? Why do you have to have to threaten me, tease me, fucking torture me all the time, huh? Can’t we just...” I make a gesture between us, “truce? Sometimes it almost feels like we get along! I can’t tell what’s a trick and what’s a test anymore, can’t you just trust that...that my fucking life is on the line here and I’m not going to screw this up for anything? Can’t you just let me be here for you?” 

“I don’t need anyone!”

The snarl comes out stronger than he intends.

His vision blurs red. “You couldn’t possibly understand. It’s just the way of the world.”

“Oh so I’m just a favour to Alexander? You’d work a whole year with me just to please him? Bullshit. You enjoy me. You want me. The /world/ can be any way you want it to be in your own home, /Maestro/!”

Something in the line of his back breaks. He slumps, then draws his sleeve carelessly across his eyes. He heads for his lonely room with the lonely cot.

“I’m tired,” he announces, before he turns back and adds cryptically. “I don’t want them to know. But if you think I want you and I like you, how does it sound when you tell me you don’t feel the same? Do you think it sounds good? Something to be proud of?”

I stand very still, as if his hand is still on my neck.

I see tears of rage.

“Is it very hard for you to not just kill me?” I accuse him of it more quietly. “You wring out my nerves and threaten the only person who means anything to me. We don’t have to be cruel to each other. I want this to be good for us. I want to care for you, I don’t want to fight with you. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“I’ve already tasted you. Of course it is very hard to not just kill you.”

He sighs, and shakes his head to himself at Jeff’s proposal.

“No, the last person who—no, I don’t know any other way,” replies the vampire, suddenly hiding his hands behind his back, looking like a caught schoolboy with his shoulders back. “You don’t even like me and you want to care for me?”

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

At that, I stand up.

Is this all in?

“Fuck you,” I growl again. “I earn honest money all on my own, I always have. He can pay his own goddamn bills now and I swear, /Nicolas/ I’ll drag you out into the noon-day fucking sun if you try to interfere with him.”

An unholy cackle of glee erupts from Nicolas’s mouth. He holds his middle, sitting at the piano bench, and kicks his feet in delight.

"You’re trying to give me rules? Oh, this is adorable,” he says, voice trailing off as he almost lovingly wraps fingers around Jeff’s throat again. This time, instead of pressing, he keeps the pressure on the underside of Jeff’s jaw and feels the hardness of the bone underneath. The strength of his vampire grip suggests Jeff is more likely to break his own neck if he struggles.

"Brave and stupid,” he says, eyes slitting in fondness as he smiles. “And loyal.”

"So I will disabuse your faulty imagination, Jeffrey, and say I could kill your entire family and nobody would even pretend to hear Alexander’s protests. So think this year before you try to threaten something that will crush you in its sleep at its weakest moment.”

“Are you trying to shock me?” I sneer right back. It feels like if I so much as move my eyes in my head, the pressure from his hand will shift and break me. I stare at him. 

“You’re the only one who’s been playing,” I tell him. “Every night that I wake up alive I’m relieved. With you in the next room, I close my eyes wondering if they’ll ever open again. Why do you think I wait until the sun rises to sleep? And wake before it sets?”  

At this admission, the vampire relaxes his grip, no longer threatening to make Jeff’s eyes bulge from their sockets with a crack of bone.

“You should always feel that way,” he says calmly with a reassured nod of satisfaction, “especially after you are dead.”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of gasping in relief. 

“Why does it have to be that way? Why do you have to have to threaten me, tease me, fucking torture me all the time, huh? Can’t we just...” I make a gesture between us, “truce? Sometimes it almost feels like we get along! I can’t tell what’s a trick and what’s a test anymore, can’t you just trust that...that my fucking life is on the line here and I’m not going to screw this up for anything? Can’t you just let me be here for you?” 

“I don’t need anyone!”

The snarl comes out stronger than he intends.

His vision blurs red. “You couldn’t possibly understand. It’s just the way of the world.”

“Oh so I’m just a favour to Alexander? You’d work a whole year with me just to please him? Bullshit. You enjoy me. You want me. The /world/ can be any way you want it to be in your own home, /Maestro/!”

Something in the line of his back breaks. He slumps, then draws his sleeve carelessly across his eyes. He heads for his lonely room with the lonely cot.

“I’m tired,” he announces, before he turns back and adds cryptically. “I don’t want them to know. But if you think I want you and I like you, how does it sound when you tell me you don’t feel the same? Do you think it sounds good? Something to be proud of?”

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

At that, I stand up.

Is this all in?

“Fuck you,” I growl again. “I earn honest money all on my own, I always have. He can pay his own goddamn bills now and I swear, /Nicolas/ I’ll drag you out into the noon-day fucking sun if you try to interfere with him.”

An unholy cackle of glee erupts from Nicolas’s mouth. He holds his middle, sitting at the piano bench, and kicks his feet in delight.

"You’re trying to give me rules? Oh, this is adorable,” he says, voice trailing off as he almost lovingly wraps fingers around Jeff’s throat again. This time, instead of pressing, he keeps the pressure on the underside of Jeff’s jaw and feels the hardness of the bone underneath. The strength of his vampire grip suggests Jeff is more likely to break his own neck if he struggles.

"Brave and stupid,” he says, eyes slitting in fondness as he smiles. “And loyal.”

"So I will disabuse your faulty imagination, Jeffrey, and say I could kill your entire family and nobody would even pretend to hear Alexander’s protests. So think this year before you try to threaten something that will crush you in its sleep at its weakest moment.”

“Are you trying to shock me?” I sneer right back. It feels like if I so much as move my eyes in my head, the pressure from his hand will shift and break me. I stare at him. 

“You’re the only one who’s been playing,” I tell him. “Every night that I wake up alive I’m relieved. With you in the next room, I close my eyes wondering if they’ll ever open again. Why do you think I wait until the sun rises to sleep? And wake before it sets?”  

At this admission, the vampire relaxes his grip, no longer threatening to make Jeff’s eyes bulge from their sockets with a crack of bone.

“You should always feel that way,” he says calmly with a reassured nod of satisfaction, “especially after you are dead.”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of gasping in relief. 

“Why does it have to be that way? Why do you have to have to threaten me, tease me, fucking torture me all the time, huh? Can’t we just...” I make a gesture between us, “truce? Sometimes it almost feels like we get along! I can’t tell what’s a trick and what’s a test anymore, can’t you just trust that...that my fucking life is on the line here and I’m not going to screw this up for anything? Can’t you just let me be here for you?” 

“I don’t need anyone!”

The snarl comes out stronger than he intends.

His vision blurs red. “You couldn’t possibly understand. It’s just the way of the world.”

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

At that, I stand up.

Is this all in?

“Fuck you,” I growl again. “I earn honest money all on my own, I always have. He can pay his own goddamn bills now and I swear, /Nicolas/ I’ll drag you out into the noon-day fucking sun if you try to interfere with him.”

An unholy cackle of glee erupts from Nicolas’s mouth. He holds his middle, sitting at the piano bench, and kicks his feet in delight.

"You’re trying to give me rules? Oh, this is adorable,” he says, voice trailing off as he almost lovingly wraps fingers around Jeff’s throat again. This time, instead of pressing, he keeps the pressure on the underside of Jeff’s jaw and feels the hardness of the bone underneath. The strength of his vampire grip suggests Jeff is more likely to break his own neck if he struggles.

"Brave and stupid,” he says, eyes slitting in fondness as he smiles. “And loyal.”

"So I will disabuse your faulty imagination, Jeffrey, and say I could kill your entire family and nobody would even pretend to hear Alexander’s protests. So think this year before you try to threaten something that will crush you in its sleep at its weakest moment.”

“Are you trying to shock me?” I sneer right back. It feels like if I so much as move my eyes in my head, the pressure from his hand will shift and break me. I stare at him. 

“You’re the only one who’s been playing,” I tell him. “Every night that I wake up alive I’m relieved. With you in the next room, I close my eyes wondering if they’ll ever open again. Why do you think I wait until the sun rises to sleep? And wake before it sets?”  

At this admission, the vampire relaxes his grip, no longer threatening to make Jeff’s eyes bulge from their sockets with a crack of bone.

“You should always feel that way,” he says calmly with a reassured nod of satisfaction, “especially after you are dead.”

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

At that, I stand up.

Is this all in?

“Fuck you,” I growl again. “I earn honest money all on my own, I always have. He can pay his own goddamn bills now and I swear, /Nicolas/ I’ll drag you out into the noon-day fucking sun if you try to interfere with him.”

An unholy cackle of glee erupts from Nicolas’s mouth. He holds his middle, sitting at the piano bench, and kicks his feet in delight.

"You’re trying to give me rules? Oh, this is adorable,” he says, voice trailing off as he almost lovingly wraps fingers around Jeff’s throat again. This time, instead of pressing, he keeps the pressure on the underside of Jeff’s jaw and feels the hardness of the bone underneath. The strength of his vampire grip suggests Jeff is more likely to break his own neck if he struggles.

"Brave and stupid,” he says, eyes slitting in fondness as he smiles. “And loyal.”

"So I will disabuse your faulty imagination, Jeffrey, and say I could kill your entire family and nobody would even pretend to hear Alexander’s protests. So think this year before you try to threaten something that will crush you in its sleep at its weakest moment.”

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

A slow smile creeps over Nicolas’s expression as the vampire begins to widen his lips.

“Mais oui, we have been playing with one another, to your great enthusiasm, Jeff! I’m going to get you every night and fuck my blood out of you, like you want. You know how you taste? How you sound, right now? Like a friend’s laughter, no?”

I hold my head in my hands. 

A year. 

I have to survive a year of this. 

All in. 

Who knows what’ll be next? 

What pain? 

Torture? 

He’s insane. 

“What is it that makes you sound so tender?”

The vampire seems to murmur to himself more than ask Jeff, but he rises from the piano bench and traces Jeff’s cuticles with his fingers. He smiles.

“Shall we compose a duet for you? Reunited with your brother in song? Perhaps this year he will wish to see you again.”

I don’t want him to touch me, but there’s no flinch when he does. 

“No,” I look up at him, “I don’t want it if it’s magic. He’ll come around, but I’m not going to turn into an old man while I wait.” 

“Don’t you want to grow up?” Nicolas asks, frowning. His fingers lift and turn Jeffrey’s head this way and that by the jaw, then tuck under his lips to tug and inspect the ridges of his gums, as though he is assessing a horse. “You have a choice. You don’t have to look like a waif for the rest of your existence. We could work at it this year. We could make you look like Max forever.”

I turn my head sharp out of his grip, send him a glare and lick my teeth. 

“No.” 

I can’t explain it. It sounds stupid, any words I’d use to tell him about the horror getting old all by myself. 

Even Jamie thinks it’s stupid. 

“Not without him,” I have to say, but my face feels hot and I don’t know if I feel safe. 

Surprise briefly passes over the vampire’s face, and he laughs to himself.

“We could bind the two of you together in the afterlife. Alexander must know some good witch-doctors. Little brothers must be reined in, and the two of you were one in the beginning. We could make you one at the end, too.”

I frown, shake my head while I watch him. 

“No. W...why would I want something like that? T-that’s insane.” 

The vampire noticeably stiffens his back, then sighs pityingly, once again ruffling the top of Jeff’s head a little harder than necessary. 

“You imbecile,” he says with fondness. “Have more sense than parroting anything you hear from unqualified amateurs. Madness is a careful gift. This would be restoring order to the universe, split asunder and copied, made whole with some blood and magic of the flesh.”

“No, I--” I shake my head, flinch away from his touch again. 

“Just because I don’t want to grow old and die alone doesn’t mean I want to be the same fucking person!” I snap. “He’s got his own life that’s fine but fuck, he’s not--I can’t....I’m not gonna let him just go on for fucking...ever...all by himself! Fuck it, no way. He needs some space right now but no...no, no I won’t, I’m not--”

"You lack the commitment of a true artist,” Nicolas says with a sigh.

“Doesn’t it mean something to you that he left you behind? That he wouldn’t let your dead weight keep him from dying?” 

He laughs at his own little joke, and leaves for the piano to play a familiar song about identical cats.

“Fuck you,” I growl, watching him go. “If I can be immortal, I will, no thanks to him.”

“You would make so much money as a whore,” Nicolas declares. “Unless you make your little brother do all the work.”

The vampire laughs again, playing a jaunty little tune on the piano as he fantasizes about all the ways to make Jeff turn colors. 

“Ooh, you would hate me for it! You’d never leave me alone!”

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

A slow smile creeps over Nicolas’s expression as the vampire begins to widen his lips.

“Mais oui, we have been playing with one another, to your great enthusiasm, Jeff! I’m going to get you every night and fuck my blood out of you, like you want. You know how you taste? How you sound, right now? Like a friend’s laughter, no?”

I hold my head in my hands. 

A year. 

I have to survive a year of this. 

All in. 

Who knows what’ll be next? 

What pain? 

Torture? 

He’s insane. 

“What is it that makes you sound so tender?”

The vampire seems to murmur to himself more than ask Jeff, but he rises from the piano bench and traces Jeff’s cuticles with his fingers. He smiles.

“Shall we compose a duet for you? Reunited with your brother in song? Perhaps this year he will wish to see you again.”

I don’t want him to touch me, but there’s no flinch when he does. 

“No,” I look up at him, “I don’t want it if it’s magic. He’ll come around, but I’m not going to turn into an old man while I wait.” 

“Don’t you want to grow up?” Nicolas asks, frowning. His fingers lift and turn Jeffrey’s head this way and that by the jaw, then tuck under his lips to tug and inspect the ridges of his gums, as though he is assessing a horse. “You have a choice. You don’t have to look like a waif for the rest of your existence. We could work at it this year. We could make you look like Max forever.”

I turn my head sharp out of his grip, send him a glare and lick my teeth. 

“No.” 

I can’t explain it. It sounds stupid, any words I’d use to tell him about the horror getting old all by myself. 

Even Jamie thinks it’s stupid. 

“Not without him,” I have to say, but my face feels hot and I don’t know if I feel safe. 

Surprise briefly passes over the vampire’s face, and he laughs to himself.

“We could bind the two of you together in the afterlife. Alexander must know some good witch-doctors. Little brothers must be reined in, and the two of you were one in the beginning. We could make you one at the end, too.”

I frown, shake my head while I watch him. 

“No. W...why would I want something like that? T-that’s insane.” 

The vampire noticeably stiffens his back, then sighs pityingly, once again ruffling the top of Jeff’s head a little harder than necessary. 

“You imbecile,” he says with fondness. “Have more sense than parroting anything you hear from unqualified amateurs. Madness is a careful gift. This would be restoring order to the universe, split asunder and copied, made whole with some blood and magic of the flesh.”

“No, I--” I shake my head, flinch away from his touch again. 

“Just because I don’t want to grow old and die alone doesn’t mean I want to be the same fucking person!” I snap. “He’s got his own life that’s fine but fuck, he’s not--I can’t....I’m not gonna let him just go on for fucking...ever...all by himself! Fuck it, no way. He needs some space right now but no...no, no I won’t, I’m not--”

"You lack the commitment of a true artist,” Nicolas says with a sigh.

“Doesn’t it mean something to you that he left you behind? That he wouldn’t let your dead weight keep him from dying?” 

He laughs at his own little joke, and leaves for the piano to play a familiar song about identical cats.

An eventful night to say the least. My room feels quiet and clean and safe.

Master comes home just before dawn and I’m relieved for it but don’t approach. I’ll let him rest. If he needs his whore in the last hour he has left I’m sure he’ll find me for it. My door is pushed closed but not latched, any more open than that feels like a direct invitation. I don’t know how closely he looks at these kinds of things, but it matters to me. I wonder if he’d turn the knob.

———-

I’m sitting on the couch that means more to him than a baby’s bloodstain when the sun sets. Ready for anything he wants to give or take, as usual, wine poured.

A slow smile creeps over Nicolas’s expression as the vampire begins to widen his lips.

“Mais oui, we have been playing with one another, to your great enthusiasm, Jeff! I’m going to get you every night and fuck my blood out of you, like you want. You know how you taste? How you sound, right now? Like a friend’s laughter, no?”

I hold my head in my hands. 

A year. 

I have to survive a year of this. 

All in. 

Who knows what’ll be next? 

What pain? 

Torture? 

He’s insane. 

“What is it that makes you sound so tender?”

The vampire seems to murmur to himself more than ask Jeff, but he rises from the piano bench and traces Jeff’s cuticles with his fingers. He smiles.

“Shall we compose a duet for you? Reunited with your brother in song? Perhaps this year he will wish to see you again.”

I don’t want him to touch me, but there’s no flinch when he does. 

“No,” I look up at him, “I don’t want it if it’s magic. He’ll come around, but I’m not going to turn into an old man while I wait.” 

“Don’t you want to grow up?” Nicolas asks, frowning. His fingers lift and turn Jeffrey’s head this way and that by the jaw, then tuck under his lips to tug and inspect the ridges of his gums, as though he is assessing a horse. “You have a choice. You don’t have to look like a waif for the rest of your existence. We could work at it this year. We could make you look like Max forever.”

I turn my head sharp out of his grip, send him a glare and lick my teeth. 

“No.” 

I can’t explain it. It sounds stupid, any words I’d use to tell him about the horror getting old all by myself. 

Even Jamie thinks it’s stupid. 

“Not without him,” I have to say, but my face feels hot and I don’t know if I feel safe. 

Surprise briefly passes over the vampire’s face, and he laughs to himself.

“We could bind the two of you together in the afterlife. Alexander must know some good witch-doctors. Little brothers must be reined in, and the two of you were one in the beginning. We could make you one at the end, too.”

I frown, shake my head while I watch him. 

“No. W...why would I want something like that? T-that’s insane.” 

The vampire noticeably stiffens his back, then sighs pityingly, once again ruffling the top of Jeff’s head a little harder than necessary. 

“You imbecile,” he says with fondness. “Have more sense than parroting anything you hear from unqualified amateurs. Madness is a careful gift. This would be restoring order to the universe, split asunder and copied, made whole with some blood and magic of the flesh.”