Melissa is coming over tonight after her shoot. Which is still early enough that he's only been up for a couple of hours when he starts getting ready for her visit. His routine is simple; get up, shower, drink quickly to forestall Hunger a little while longer. Get a bit of work done. If she isn't there when he wakes up, of course. Sometimes she is, and then they spend some time together before she goes to sleep and he settles in to work. It's all a matter of timing.

He looks at the clock, remembering when she said the evening shoot would be over. Time enough to tidy up a bit, straighten piles of drafts and sketches on the coffee table and put them away. All on recycled sketch paper, too. The sofa was different, subtly so. Everything leather in his apartment, though she had never asked him to, had been replaced with faux leather or soft plant fibers, cotton or bamboo silk. He'd become intimately familiar with such terms as bamboo silk, or soy silk. When he had been her age such things would have been unthinkable. How strange times have become.

He prints his novels on recycled paper now, and the bin where he used to shred his corrected manuscripts is now emptied into a paper recylcing tub in the basement of the apartment complex rather than joining the rest of his garbage in the dumpster behind the building. Rather than buying new cartriges he buys the bulk inks and fills them himself. His hands are already stained with ink from sketching the graphic novels anyway. The additional mess doesn't matter, and the mess to his apartment is easy to clean up.

The cleaners, now, that's where the real revolution was. One by one his ordinary, cheap chemical cleaners disappeared, replaced with their environmentally friendly 100% organic equivalents. It's probably a good thing he doesn't eat, he thinks to himself and with a touch of laughter, because he'd find his fridge cleaned out and replaced as well. The concept of calling something organic food amuses him still. "As opposed to what, inorganic food?" She'd smacked him and told him that no one loves a smartass.

He still thinks these notions of hers are a little strange. Oh, to be sure, he'd enjoy the preservation of the planet's resources as much as the next bloke, he has to live on it too. But for centuries he's lived among a human civilisation unaware of and uncaring for the tracks it leaves on the world surrounding. The eco-revolution is new, the idea of taking steps to minimize one's impact is new, and dating a tree-hugging vegan hippie is definitely new. Not at all unwelcome. Somewhat amusing; since he doesn't strongly disagree with any of her opinions they don't fight overmuch and their arguments are more in the nature of philosophical debates or playful teasing. But the whole thing is passing strange to him.

Not that he'd trade a moment of it for the world. Love may be a renewable resource, but time is not.

Which is why, when he catches her scent under the door and hears her footsteps skipping down the hall, he throws the door open and proclaims with open arms and a beaming, slightly goofy grin: "Hello, my tree-hugging vegan hippie! And how was your sojourn among the rich, spoiled, and decadent?"

Of course she'll roll her eyes at him, ask what's gotten into him, poke him in the shoulder and tease back. But that's the whole point. Of all the changes she's made in his life, the addition of love and joy are the most important.

He never celebrated it with Vicki. And before that was before Valentine's Day, and the only things he had to worry about were such perfunctory treats as benefited his casual flings with whoever he was flirting at the time. They generally had other people on the side, so was he. It was more a gift between friends than a moment for lovers.

This is different.

This is Henry planning ahead, paying probably three times what it cost to make the meal to have them deliver her favorite Indian dishes to his apartment at a set time. The apartment was clean, thanks to a service he had and a brief flurry of half-hour activity in his bedroom, so that wasn't a worry. He'd put away anything resembling work, which was slightly different. He didn't decorate much. A few dozen candles, scattered in their glass holders all over the room. All the traditional touches.

There were some non-traditional touches, too. A romantic dinner for them involved a few precautions: gauze for bandages, a few extra pillows for her to rest on. The idea, although he was flexible to change the schedule of dinner as long as the tone of dinner remained the same, was that he would drink somewhat first. A sort of blood-play foreplay, and then she would eat some to recover her strength, and then they might proceed into the bedroom.

And the bedroom had been somewhat transformed for the evening.

Having discovered her slight masochistic tendencies, they'd thoroughly enjoyed testing the limits of them for a good long while. He'd showered and dressed in an outfit she seemed to favor above most others, and one that balanced flattering clothes with ease of removal later. One-handed, if necessary. They'd been making use of a riding crop he'd had for a while, over the years, both for its originally intended purpose and the most common secondary one; for tonight he went to a specialist and found a new one with a red satin-velvet grip and a good swing, every inch of so-called leather from a non-animal source. He preferred to let her pick her own clothing but he'd found a beautiful red and black lace shawl, soft for her skin and one that was large enough to drape over her entire body, should she choose. And he did entertain a fantasy of seeing her draped in it.

There was a pitcher of water chilling in the fridge for later, and a box of vegan chocolates in the drawer of the bedside table. There was enough traditionally romantic music loaded into the stereo to last three evenings straight, and when the time came there were enough candles even in the bedroom (and most of them perched in shallow trays and pools of water) to provide adequate lighting.

The final touches, though, were not even for that night. The final touches had come in a moment of inspiration two days ago, when he'd been thinking about Valentine's Day, solidifying his plans and contemplating how this would be the first traditional Valentine's Day he'd celebrate. Vicki had never been into such things. And it was an artificial holiday, a Hallmark holiday that had little to do with the St Valentine he'd known growing up in his father's church-ruled England. But it was an artificial holiday, the meaning of which he could embrace. So, rather than a Valentine's Day card, there were letters.

The first would actually be delivered to her apartment the day after Valentine's Day, a red envelope with a silver heart seal, as though an afterthought or a belated present. In it, written in a delicate hand that had never quite forgotten its skill at shaping pretty letters, some thoughts on her and him and how they fit together. How much it meant to him to have her in his life. How she filled his nights and how much he looked forward, every evening, to hearing that doorknob turn and her footstep in the hallway. To seeing her smile.

The next would be delivered some days later. And several to follow, letters on the same general theme but each of them different. He'd spent some time wandering the city and thinking on all the little things that reminded him of her now, all the ways she'd slid and fit into his life and twined herself around him. How he thought about some things now, food and clothing and so on, in attentive detail that he'd never paid much mind to before. How he saw people in new lights now, people moved by passion to speak or show or write or paint, people moved to speak out. How some little thing like a flower or a piece of music reminded him of her and made him smile. And on, and on, and on.

There were nearly a dozen of these letters, to be spread out over the next several weeks. Keeping Valentine's Day, or at least the spirit of it, the appreciation of a loved one and partner, alive. It shouldn't be for only one day out of the year, although it was so easy to make something of a celebration and then let it slide. New Years', Christmas, Easter, people did it all the time. This, at least, he could give her, this prolonging. These little reminders of how much, even if they so rarely said it, how much he did love her.

[Set in one_last_resort]

They pretend it doesn't happen. It's easier that way.

At least for a little while. After the not quite a kiss they don't talk about it, for days. Then in the middle of an argument, some fight about something neither of them remembers afterwards there's another kiss, and this one doesn't even have the excuse of bloodlust. It lasts for maybe a minute and a half before they pull apart and Mike gives him a weird look and then they don't speak at all for days.

It's the hotel. It's making them crazy.

Being cooped up inside this stupid place for day after day, investigating everything they can but even the nearly five hundred year old vampire doesn't know what's going on, can't figure it out, can't think of anything to stop it or fix it or get them the hell out of there. A few new people arrive. One person disappears, never to be seen again. The more things change the more they stay the same, and Henry is reminded of the time he went to see Huis Clos performed by a group of community artists in Berlin. That's what this is like. Hell really is other people.

But even in this hell they're the only two who know each other so well. And even in this hotel, they're still staying in the same room. Moving around each other silently as though the other doesn't exist except for all those sidelong glances. Except for the moments when Mike starts having nightmares and Henry just hovers until morning, as though nightmares are something he can physically guard against. Except for the times when Henry sits as far from the so-called daylight coming through the window as possible, wondering why he isn't asleep, and Mike sits between him and the sunbeam pretending to read a Danielle Steel novel. Apart from the fact that he doesn't turn a page for two hours, Henry can tell he's pretending because Mike would never read Danielle Steel novels.

They start playing games. Little games, especially when the mannequins come out and neither of them wants to admit that they're unnerved by the faceless, voiceless creatures so they just hide. Ducking into side corridors and other people's hotel rooms and that's how they both end up squeezed into a supply closet. Which is how they wind up with Mike's head morosely planted on Henry's shoulder and his fingers sliding through Henry's hair, longer and by now almost curly and soft. Henry almost says something but doesn't and they don't kiss, but they do touch more than two men who are barely even friends in the twenty-first century usually do.

Out of the supply closet, out of the hotel room, they wear masks. Henry has his Prince of Man face on almost all the time now, and Mike is always Detective Cellucci, except around vulnerable-looking young women. Then he's the Mike in shining armor, world-weary smiles and gallant gestures. It's all fake. Henry knows it's fake; the politeness is real but the intimacy that's implied isn't. Mike doesn't really want to get to know most of the people in the hotel, Henry thinks. That would imply that they're going to be stuck here, and even Henry doesn't want to think that. Despite the fact that they seem to be making their home here. Despite the fact that they're nesting.

They're not supposed to be. They were supposed to be two opposite points looking up towards the third in their little triangle, but she isn't here. And all they have is each other. Henry needs the closeness, the intimacy, and Mike needs something to cling to even if it is the bloodsucking Prince of Darkness, and they need to be near each other because they're familiar. And they're all the familiar they have.

Outside of the hotel room they wander through the halls increasingly hollow, empty, ghost-like. Caricatures of what they had been when what they were had meaning, when being a vampire meant something other than sucking on a bag every morning, when being a cop meant serve and protect instead of pointlessly pace through hallways. Inside the hotel room the masks can come off and they have someone to relate to, someone to hold onto, even if it's only for a moment, warm skin on cool in the middle of the night.

Submission

For all the games they play in the bedroom, Henry will lie there on the bed and watch her catch a few moments of sleep and wonder how it is that she can bring herself to be with him. God knows, he's not the easiest boyfriend to have, Tony's told him so often enough.

His fingers trace the curve of her shoulder when he thinks she's deeply asleep, deep enough that she won't wake. A Prince of England, bent so supremely to her will, does she know? Does she even suspect how much he loves her, what he would do for her? Even he is surprised by it, sometimes.

It certainly wasn't anything that he had expected. Nothing that he looked for.

She came into his life one bright evening as only New York can deliver and six months later he couldn't imagine his life without her. Women, the occasional young man, have had a habit of turning his life upside down like that. Few enough in his few centuries of life, but some. And she, Melissa, bright and shining and fierce and playful and the center of his world, now, in her quiet and solid way.

She's turned his life upside down and he doesn't mind at all. The refridgerator, previously largely only used for storing cool water, has turned into a miniature fruit and veg stand. He works around the schedule of her visits and gently shoos her off to sleep at least some portion of the night, more especially when she has to get up in the morning. His calendar is twice, near three times as full as it used to be with her appointments and photo shoots, mainly so he has an idea of when she needs to have an early moening of it.

He keeps at least as careful track of her blood and iron as she does; it's the one point on which he will stand firm. If he so much as thinks she can't lose another drop, he will not drink.

And yet in most other matters... Vicki, Mike Cellucci would hardly recognize him now. Even he doesn't know why or how it came about, why his usual arrogance seems to quiet itself when she's around. Why he is so easily swayed by her, why he takes the position behind her lead so often, arms around her shoulders and protective but still. Following her lead, submitting his life to her will. She's so gentle it's barely a breeze though a forest. Ripples on the surface of his life that have deep and long-lasting echoes.

He watches her breathing catch as he strokes down her arm, watches her eyes flutter open and smiles as she rolls over and smiles up at him again. For a moment the world stops on the shine in her eyes, and then it can spin again.

It was strange to wake up before night. It was strange not to have a night at all. It was strange to roll over in the bed and see Mike Cellucci lying next to him.

Admittedly, next to him in this case meant on the other bed, next to his bed, and across the gap. But still.

Henry didn't want to get out of bed, and it had been a while since that sensation had been accompanied by lassitude of the limbs and no one else in the bed, wanting to stay under the covers where it was warm, and... sunlight under the curtains.

How odd.

....

Ulterior motives and hidden agendas

He let the man ramble on, smiling and nodding at the appropriate points, feigning interest in the way the man was clumsily attempting to pick him up for what he guessed was a one night stand. Extreme times called for extreme measures. He wasn't above sleeping with someone if it meant he got the right person.

Little, casual touches on the shoulder, light touches on the knee were returned in kind. Henry had actually had to go to some lengths to make sure he wasn't too pretty, since the boys that had been found dead in the woods or by the river had tended to be on the too effeminate side of pretty. A little makeup here and there did the trick. Gave him the appearance of someone who was hungry, which he was, and desperate, which he wasn't. It hadn't taken him long.

Being around Vicki had rubbed off on him, and he had been pleasantly surprised when his investigations into the last known whereabouts of the murdered boys had borne fruit quickly. It all came back to this street, these two or three bars.

And if he had been a real detective, it might have ended there. Except he was counting on his predatory nature to recognize another predator when it came for him.

The man covered his unease and restlessness by claiming he had never done this before. The more subtle touch was the was the pale outline of a wedding band on his finger against the tan of his skin. Implying someone vulnerable, someone who wasn't yet sure of what he wanted but very eager to try new things. Someone who could be manipulated, and was therefore safe.

Henry had the feeling he wasn't safe, that was all right. Henry was far from safe as well.

They went back to the man's apartment. It was sparsely furnished, something that had clearly been set up not very long ago and yet from the way the man moved about it he had clearly been in the place for a long time. Long enough to be comfortable with everything inside the small set of rooms. Henry didn't think the man's usual prey would have noticed. Especially not if the speed with which they went from talking and walking hand-in-hand to kissing (badly) up against the wall was typical of him. He did, at least, act like a man who desperately wanted sex.

Henry desperately wanted something else.

They were actually in the middle of it and Henry was starting to think he had been wrong when the man reached for the plastic bag. Fortunately, Henry didn't need to breathe so much as normal people, and recovered quicker.

He waited while the man finished, sobbed over what was probably taken for Henry's cooling corpse. Waited as the man pulled out, scrubbed off, and dressed himself in the other room. Crawled to the wall and pushed himself to his feet as the man lit a cigarette, how trite it was! Pulled his clothing on slowly, quietly, as the man finished the cigarette and calmed himself down.

When the killer came out to examine the dead body, probably wrap in plastic and dispose of it, Henry smiled. Calm quickly gave way to terror, and it was the killer's turn to become prey.

Henry hadn't been sure what he was going to do about this. About this man, if he could be called a man, and Henry thought of him more as a petulant little boy who never grew up. But now that he found himself face to face with the killer who had just went himself upon seeing the man he'd killed standing there smiling in front of him, it seemed obvious. Henry thought of Tony, of all the boys who had started out like him and ended wrapped in plastic in the woods of the river, and took his time.

In all his years of living, the most important thing Henry had learned about the opposite sex...

... or the same sex, really.

Was to pay attention.

He certainly intended to do that tonight.

Hopefully, the evening would go just as well as planned. An evening of warm water, champagne for the lady, candlelight in the bathroom. Romance and seduction and showing her in all the small ways, without making it obvious what he was doing or bringing back memories of the argument, how much she meant to him.

To that end, during the day, he hired someone to go out shopping for him.

There were roses, now. And a slightly disproportionate number of rose petals in a jar for sprinkling over the water, or over the bed, as whichever seemed appropriate. There were sweets to feed her, and a dinner order ready and waiting to be assembled and delivered. A dinner order high on the protein, to replenish some of what they both suspected she might lose tonight.

There was soft, sweet music of many times and many kinds, a selection depending on the mood that struck. There were feather toys, and harder toys, and blindfolds, remembering that she enjoyed that sort of thing. There were also blankets on the warming rack, and rented movies for softer moments. Just because tonight was planned to be a debauched escapade didn't mean it had to be entirely sexual.

Massage oils, a discrete abundance of tissues, and plenty of bottled water. And even if they would shortly be undressed again, he dressed up for the occasion, even if they never left the apartment. She would be over soon, she had said. Smiling, he closed his eyes and allowed himself a bit of a daydream.

He couldn't wait.

Name of Muse: Henry Fitzroy
Fandom/Type of Muse: Blood Ties (book nostly)/Fandom Character
Link to muse profile page: http://almostaprince.livejournal.com/profile
Mun name, nickname or handle: Jag
Best way to get a message to the mun: jaguar dot kitty at gmail dot com
Do you use AIM or any other IM? AIM: NicDorcha
One hundred words about the muse that everyone should know: Henry Fitzroy really is a royal bastard. He's almost 500 years old, and he's still governed by the instincts of a prince as well as the instincts of a vampire. Also, he's a Tudor.

In the 21st century with Henry Fitzroy is also a romance writer, and a graphic novelist. At the moment he lives in New York City, in a well-appointed apartment ostensibly by himself. He takes his "nourishment" from his lover, Melissa, and from a small circle of other trusted acquaintances. He tries to live a simple, quiet life, for the most part.

But he's still not a tame vampire.

Prompt only, or available to roleplay? Available for RP
Posting tag: ?
Link to memories or tag page showing RotM posts: http://almostaprince.livejournal.com/tag/realm+of+the+muse

It still startled him that she still wanted to be close to him. That, after everything he had said and everything she had heard, she was still there.

They would be spending a considerable amount of time learning how to be close again. Perhaps not as long as they had first place, and perhaps it was a different kind of learning, but if nothing else they needed to remember how to relax around each other. They needed to remember how to be comfortable again.

He decided, at least for himself and for his own actions, that that would be best accomplished by remembering and reminding them both what things were like when they had been at their best.

Little things. All the little things that they have enjoyed about being together. The music he played, not only her favorites, but also whatever he could remember them listening to in the fun moments, the silly moments, the moments of quietly sitting on the couch and enjoying the simplicity of being together. Leaving the door open while he worked, or working out in the living room, where she could watch if she chose and share a little bit with him. Putting off anything that wasn't for an immediate deadline.

Movies that had made them both laugh, or movies in a similar style. Conversations about lighthearted things, less lighthearted but still hopeful things, nothing too dark and depressing. Not yet. Not avoiding the political topics either, if she brought them up. Mostly it was a series of interconnected moments, decisions made in the spur of the moment and according to what seemed to be best at the time. What seemed to be the most likely to put her at ease, to bring her contentment. If she needed space, he could give her space. If she needed to be reassured that he wanted her in his life, he could do that too.

Because, startlingly, it was true. They had met precipitously and without warning, not quite in the same emergency manner as he and Vicki, not in the same society circles as he and Ginevra or he and Sidonie. But it was still more than he had expected, within the space of a fortnight, maybe a month, to find someone who…

He thought what the words were, as he watched her stare out of the window to his apartment. He was a writer, he should be able to come up with some sort of phrase or speech or explanation as to what this was and how he felt. And yet, whenever he tried, the words all seem to jumble, locked inside his head and behind his mouth and he couldn't get anything out. And yet, if there was a time to say something, now would be it. Now, before this turned into a May-December romance, and they drifted apart through his own foolishness.

Henry waited until she fell asleep, and even when she was dreaming restlessly, her breath stirring the head fell over her face, he didn't move. He had decided a moment after she fell asleep that he would be there in case she woke up. As long as he could, at any rate. When the dawn came there was only so much he could do.

The conversation had exhausted them both. It was hard to explain, and hard to answer the questions she didn't know how to ask, hard for both of them to talk without sounding too hurt for reconciliation or too angry to be approached. Or something like that. There was a part of him that, hurt, wanted to ask her how she thought she would feel if her life had been taken by the assumptions and turned upside down and shaken. If she would not reach out in some way. Or maybe ask her why he was the one who had to prove everything, when he'd never said a word about what she did during the daylight hours. Or any one of half a dozen petulant, useless things.

The truth was, simply, that he was hurt and scared and sad. And Henry Fitzroy had never dealt well with being any of those, let alone all of them once.

But still, here they were. They had managed some semblance of a reconciliation, they had agreed to take things slowly. They had agreed they both wanted to fix things, at least. And that neither of them wanted to lose whatever it was they had in the first several months.

( Read more... )

There were times. Honestly.

It started out as a conversation, with Vicki, and then developed into a full-blown tirade about what an ass he was and how the hell did he expect to... something. He logged off the chat program after he realized neither of them was doing anything useful.

And after that it was brooding in the studio for an evening. Or rather, attempting to get some work done, which actually only resulted in setting him back a few days' work when he spilled ink all over one of his sheets. The subsequent fit of rage was best taken elsewhere. Somewhere with more breakable things and... no. There. He was hungry anyway. And no one needed to be creeping around the dockyards at night.

In the morning, a hapless dock worker would find four men stacked up like cordwood. He would call in a murder until one of them stirred and he realized, not dead, just in dire need of transfusions.

With the Hunger sated, anger was rapidly giving way to self-castigating depression. The second night Vicki was a little more helpful, and he fired off an email to Tony as well hoping for something like useful advice. Mike... no, Mike would be only too happy to gloat. Not Cellucci. He made do with Vicki, and they both managed not to pick a fight with each other. She even had some good advice.

Which was how the pajamagram ended up at Melissa's door the next morning, along with a vampire stuffed toy bear and, later, when she was home, a pint of her favorite non-milk ice cream. A short letter that said "I understand these, and the company of some good friends, are what's traditional when your lover acts like a hurtful idiot." And a little note that said 'I'm sorry.' Because he was.

He'd call her later, in the evening.

I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

He had found her on Craigslist, of all things. The wonders of the modern era, being able to connect with people all over the country, all over the world. Being able to interact with people he would never have met otherwise, and find out things about them that they might not be comfortable talking about otherwise. Like strange habits and fetishes. Like vampirism.

It started with a pretense, and he wasn't proud of that. But she would never have agreed to talk with him otherwise. And maybe it wasn't the best idea asking her to agree to meet in public at first but it would have looked suspicious otherwise, wouldn't it?

No, it wouldn't. Some humans really were that stupid.

He wasn't sure what he had been expecting. He wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but it wasn't this. He stood, the way you do when a lady enters your space.

"Henry."

"Christina."

And there. That was out of the way, they had acknowledged the recognition. That they knew each other. She sat, after a moment, and he sat too and tried to quash the surge of hope that welled up anyway.

They looked at each other for several minutes and he counted each heartbeat until she looked down and shook her head.

"You shouldn't have done that."

How did he say this? How was he going to tell her? About Vicki, about everything. "This is exactly what I should have done." He said it with the self-assuredness of a prince, not of Henry Fitzroy.

Christina shook her head. "Henry..."

"No, listen. I discovered something about us. Vicki..."

"Vicki?"

She didn't say it with the sharpness or the wary inquistion he wanted. A little bit of hope, crushed. It didn't feel as bad as he expected it to.

"Let me explain..."

He did. Everything they'd discovered, everything he and Vicki had fought for and learned together. And the strangest thing of all, and perhaps the most painful thing of all, was that it didn't seem to matter. It didn't change the expression on her face. It did absolutely nothing to change the tension and empty space between them.

"We could be together, Christina. Someday, we could..."

She shook her head. She stood, and this time it did hurt. He didn't stop her, or stand, only looked up.

"No, Henry." Her smile was sad, and her fingers were soft through his hair, and she turned away anyway. "We couldn't."

The Death Penalty

Henry turned off the television halfway through the first news broadcast about the protest. On another night he might have been intrigued, but there was something about tonight, perhaps Melissa's absence on an evening shoot, that made him broody.

There were protesters on one side of the fence saying that killing to punish was wrong and there were protesters on the other side saying that the murdering bastard deserved to die for what he did. And all Henry could think of, with a sardonic and not very human smile, was that if they had protested the so-called death penalty in his father's time they would have been next on the block.

Choices. They all had choices in this day and age. Choose to vote for the death penalty, choose to vote against it. Choose to make your voice heard. Choose to object or rally to one side or the other, choose to remain silent. Choose to waive your right to appeal the death penalty, which he had heard of happening in some cases. He remembered more than one person going to the block with their head high.

He also remembered Catherine running down the hallway screaming. After his time, supposedly, but. He remembered.

People were unused to executions by law these days. He wondered what some of them (Melissa, when he dared to think about it) would have thought of his father's rule. And certain of those who came after. No disagreement, no contention, no arguing. If he declared you dead, you were dead. No appeal.

After nearly six hundred years of life the former almost Prince of England didn't want to rule, didn't want to have to make those choices. And couldn't have said, if asked, whether he would have made them by democracy or by decree. But he was very much aware of how things had changed.

Rehabilitation

It was harder than he let anyone know, after escaping the temptation the Egyptian priest had offered, to find out that Vicki was crashing through barriers like a besieging army. To find out that a lot of his preconceptions, what he had been taught and believed for centuries, were wrong. Keeping in contact over the internet was one thing; it was something he might have done long ago, had letters or messengers been more reliable. The idea that they might be able to tolerate each other in the same city...

It was something that she had driven home the last time, with the ghosts. Something that he was still, years later, getting used to.

All right, perhaps not in the immediate vicinity or in the same apartment building. It would be centuries, if ever, before they shared a bed again. But there was the possibility now that they could live in the same city, hunt in overlapping territories. At a high cost, if they were willing to pay it. Which they weren't.

But if it was possible, then there were alternatives. Changing the patterns of a lifetime. Rehabilitating the vampire instinct. They could learn to overcome the territoriality and how much of his own instinct was learned because he had been a prince (well, almost) and how much was the vampire? And how much of hers was her own stubbornness?

It was hard. To think that there were alternatives, and especially to think that there were choices now that hadn't existed before. And choices then that no one had known of. Christina. They needn't have been separated. He could have...

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. King James version of the Bible - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

When he wakes at the start of the evening it's still with a gasp, still with the edges of reality rushing in on him, but this time it's also with a warm and vital hand on his chest. Or with the sound of her heartbeat in his room or the next, or the shift of the bed as she sits up and sets aside her book.

"Good morning," he mumbles, smiling and still half-asleep for a moment longer.

"Good evening," she teases, kissing his cheek.

Sometimes he gets up and showers, gets dressed, and sometimes she has to go out to a night-time shoot. Or sometimes they stay in bed for a little while longer, and get up leisurely, especially if neither of them have any pressing deadlines.

"After all," she murmurs, hand sliding over his body and under the sheets. "There's no point in getting dressed only to get undressed five seconds later, right?"

He agrees, wordlessly. They leave the bedroom thirty, forty minutes, maybe an hour later, showered and dressed again, amidst smiles and laughter.

Most nights he works, keeping a rough equivalent of a nine to five schedule. But he doesn't work alone these days; for the first time he keeps his studio open. Sometimes she's working on projects of her own in the next room, sometimes she sits and reads one of his books. Sometimes they talk about things that have been happening in the world. Sometimes, if he's just sketching storyboards instead of doing fine detail work, she sits with him and plays with his hair, and they talk quietly about nothing at all.

They have little enough time together, sometimes he puts off work until she has to go home or sleep, and they go out and catch a late movie. A late dinner, and by dinner she eats and he pretends to eat, pushing his food around, getting something she can snack off his plate.

They find a nice club and dance at least a part of the night away. They go find their friends and hang out at someone's house. She stretches out on the couch and props her feet up on his lap for him to rub.

"Hedonist."

"Naturally."

They play card games and board games and laugh and talk about nothing, still, until it gets into the wee hours and they tiptoe stagger off for home.

It gets late. He tucks her into bed, kisses her good night at the door, walks her to her place. Sometimes she crawls into bed with him, and he always thanks her before the dawn drags him down, for staying. And she kisses him again and tells him not to be silly, and says she'll see him tomorrow evening.

They haven't said the words yet. They don't seem to need to.

What was the last thing that you ate that was so good, you didn’t want to stop eating it?

It might have been as much the perception of sensuality that made so many want him to feed off of them while they "did it." Granted, it was a perfectly reasonable trait for vampires to have. Increased pheromone production attracting their prey to them. Sealant to close the wound so that they could continue being attractive instead of having to worry about messy things like sheared skin and veins.

Sensuality. It made it easier to feed. It made it more enjoyable when he was feeding from a lover.

They were moving slowly enough that took considerable stamina and made her limbs tremble with the effort of holding still. Every thrust accompanied by a caress, or a murmured endearment, or a kiss to super-sensitive skin.

He picked up the rhythm only when he sensed that they were both near it, her fingernails digging into his skin a moment later and her voice murmuring, babbling pleas. They both wanted it finished, in that desperate way of wanting it never to end at the same time. The anticipation was never so sharp.

And the ending never so sweet as when they rode it together, teeth sinking into flesh. Hot and sharp and shuddering, blood and sweat and her fluids and his, mingling. It was the sweetest thing in the world.

Until next time.

Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus. - A sleeping dragon is never to be tickled.

Henry only slept during the day, which sufficed for his rest for the entirety of the night. That didn't mean, however, that there weren't times when all he wanted to do was lie back with one arm thrown over his face and just listen to the music. The city or the CD or the silence, it didn't matter which.

Perhaps it was inevitable that Tony would try to sneak up on him with a water gun full of ice water. Or an ice cube, or something like that.

"I can hear you, you know," he said without moving an inch.

"I know."

He moved his arm, lowering it enough to give Tony an arch look. "I'm faster than you are."

"Yep."

"So why are you doing this exactly?"

The response, knowing Tony, might have been anything from because it's funny to because I know you won't really hurt me for it. Either was true, but there was time for neither response, between the blast of ice water to the chest and down his midsection as Tony turned and ran, dropping the gun somewhere along the way.

It was all Tony's fault. It really was.

Gentleman's clubs were not Henry's particular idea of a choice evening out, never had been. At least, not in the United States or Canada. There was always something kind of off about the way they conducted themselves, the way the men behaved, even most of the women. They were better in Europe. Or at least, from Henry's admittedly limited experience.

He did have to agree with Tony, though, that the gentleman's club (and this one was gentlemen only) was more relaxed than usual. More comprised of folk who were simply there to entertain and be entertained for the sheer joy of doing so, rather than the greed and baseness and derision, degradation that even the higher class of establishment seemed to reek of. This one was the sort of place that he suspected you wouldn't find by chance, but might be shown by a friend who trusted you. And he was a little startled to find, he liked it.

Enough, at least, to laugh and encourage Tony to go up when someone he seemed to know started to chant his name. Henry didn't join in, but he did encourage. With looks and touches and Tony was blushign by the time he got up on stage. Laughing and clearly pleased with himself by the time he got back down.

"Okay, your turn."

"... What?"

No. No way. Henry frowned at him, but it didn't deter Tony. Just the opposite, in fact.

"Come on. Use some of those natural charms you keep..."

Smoulder. Tony swallowed.

"Natural charms?" Henry's eyebrows arched, head tilting to expose a little more of his neck in a gesture that was ironic only for those who knew. Which in this place meant only Tony.

"Yeah..."

But he'd already attracted a little attention with that. And Tony was looking at him with something between apprehension and desire, not unusual but... he hadn't seen that look on his face recently. And part of him missed it.

And part of him, the arrogance and self-assurance of a several hundred year old vampire used to being regarded and wanted, simply wouldn't mind the chance to show off.

He made a show of selecting a song and had something of a long-suffering look on his face, right up until he took the stage. It wasn't that hard, was it?

Yes, yes it was.

Oh, of course, not too hard for him. Once he found the rhythm of the music and figured out how to use the lights and such to his advantage, it was easy. There was a trick to moving your hands and body in a way suggestive of a lover's touch, automatically adjusting it for the way a man touched rather than a woman. There was a difference, albeit subtle.

There was also the instinct of the hunter, listening to the mood of the crowd and adapting it to suit. There was little enough ferocity in the room but there was a great deal of lust, and he could play at least somewhat benign if he had to. Benign, and handsome enough to pant over. To lust after, and go home and fuck your partner senseless, or twist and writhe on the sheets until you fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. If he had been a vampire who could feed solely on emotions he would have gorged himself, that night. And it felt so, so good to be the cause of all that again.

As it was, he and Tony left quickly after that, with their decorum and dignity intact, more or less. Him with more and Tony with less. He gave Tony a kiss goodnight that the young man wouldn't soon forget and sent him back to his hotel. After an evening like that, he had no intention of going to bed alone. But he did have someone who might prefer him in her bed, than Tony's.

Life.

When the sun rises he can feel the light over his shoulder before anything, before the creeping lassitude and death's younger sister, sleep, overtaking him. When the sun sets the first thing he feels is the temptation of life, just within reach. Always, he stretches out as far as he can to grab for it.

Henry's eyes flew open first thing, fingers clutching into the sheets, chest heaving in the first gasp of air. He could feel life, vibrant life in the room, a heartbeat that wasn't his own, faint and stuttery as it was while it still stumbled to a rhythm. There. It caught, held, and he was awake again. Listening to a steady beat that wasn't his own, the scent of quieted blood in the air, subsumed underneath all the scents of his apartment.

There was a difference between fresh-spilled blood and dried blood, between dried blood and old blood, between blood out of the body and blood in it. Human and animal. He hadn't realized you could still smell it when it was inside someone until he had been in a crowd and gone straight from there to an empty cemetary. The presence of pulsing flesh and the absence of it. Like going from the coarse and sweaty sun to a dry shade.

Over the years he'd learned not to comment on it, recognizing almost immediately how ghoulish it sounded, at least to living humans. These days, with vampire chic coming back and children pushing the limits of good taste and good sense further and further, he might start slipping it into the graphic novels every now and then. People would just think he had a good imagination. They usually did. But it was true. You could smell the life pouring through someone, inside, as well as when it poured out of them onto the tips of your boots.

Henry generally preferred the blood to stay inside body. His own, others', it didn't much matter until someone pissed him off enough. No, that wasn't accurate either, he rarely killed unless in a frenzy, or unless that person had been determined to be a danger to himself and his own that he could not tolerate.

Blood in the body, pulsing between his lips with the rhythm of the heart. In the rhythm of that heat. Without blood, without that rhythm, there was no life. In his more poetical moments he fancied that the blood, while necessary for sustenance, was only that. It was life that was the craving, the addiction.

You'd never catch him drinking blood from a chilled glass like those vampires on TV.

The thought made him chuckle, rolling onto his side as he allowed the feast of his senses to draw him back to life, to here, to the bed and the light and Melissa curled up next to him. Reading. Calm as anything, possibly engrossed in the book which, yes, one of his romances. Dear lord. Back in the day it would have been scandalous for a lady of her grace (even lacking the breeding or title) to be reading such a thing. Now it was just amusing.

"Enjoying the book?"