crescendo

Llewyn smoothed a palm on the arch of David’s back, rubbed circles over the fabric. David’s strength wasn’t something he could measure or fully comprehend, not as well as he did his fear; that he understood quite well. It was the human in him, what little of it there was left, connecting with the endless kindness of his much younger lover. He knew well what the future held for the two of them, the hard choice they would have to make. He didn’t want to make it, but it could only be put off for so long. And if David was to survive in this world—his world—they would have to face it and its ghastly implications.

He only wished he could keep him like this for a bit longer; this warm, this kind, this human.

“This is going to be hard. But no matter what you choose and what you become, David, I will not abandon you. I promise you that.” Letting go of his waist, Llewyn raised his hands to David’s neck and pulled him down gently, pressing a soft kiss on his forehead. Then he brought his arms down and moved away, turning to face the hill, the steep the climb that still lay ahead of them.

It had been a long time since he’d last been here, and he had always come here alone, both in the physical world and in his dreams. Only once he’d invited anyone to see this. It felt like a lifetime ago when he’d stood at the top of the hill of his mindscape and watched the sunset with David. “Come on,” he said, taking the boy’s hand in his and starting the walk once again.

As they climbed, David reflected upon the gifts he'd already received. Love--he was touched in ways he'd never been before, he was held as he slept, and he was appreciated. Treated like something precious and looked at like art. The next gift was freedom; pulled from his cage and given an opportunity to see the world. Not one day in this kingdom was the same and David was certain a life with Llewyn would be an endless journey, of challenges and rewards, of peace and war.

He also received a home. In this home, he wasn't walking on eggshells, or keeping his head down and his mouth shut to avoid conflict. He wouldn't tuck away his drawings or hide in a bedroom—he was comfortable in every corner of that mansion.

The final gift, David now realized, was power. Llewyn wanted to give it to him. The power to protect himself. To become like one of the many things that existed only in his sketchbook. For once, he would be capable of pushing back.

At a human’s pace, it would take a while for them to wind their way through the city’s streets, but rather than dwell on wasted time, Llewyn chose to give himself to the comfort of the distance. When was the last time they walked like this? Not since they had left Covaire. In another life, he would have found it tedious, but that was precisely what it felt like before David—another life. He would spend minutes facing the road ahead, peering into the darkness before them, and then he would turn and stare his boy in the eye and smile. Lucidity wasn’t uncommon after feeding, but tonight his mind felt especially clear.

“Does the darkness scare you still?” he voiced as they turned on a corner. “Maybe it should. Fear will keep you safe. But only for so long. Just like I can only keep you safe for so long…” Though the words were troubling, his expression remained serene. “There are so many terrible things in this world, so many you have not yet seen. I can protect you from all of them, but only for a time.”

His fingers wrapped more tightly around David’s palm. “It’s hard for me, knowing this, knowing that not even all my power will save you forever. But that is the nature of things. It is how it’s meant to be, and that is not a bad thing, David. I could have easily stopped you from leaving the house and following after me, but I didn’t. I wanted you to see it. Needed you to… Not because I want you to embrace the darkness, to take on death like I have. This is the path I chose. Mine. And if it is to be yours, too, that will be your choice to make.”

Coming to a stop at the foot of a hill, Llewyn let go of David’s hand and turned his body to face his. He moved closer, arms wrapping around the boy’s lithe waist, and pulled him in. “I don’t want you to be scared of the darkness. But I don’t want merely to protect you from it. I want to give you the power to protect yourself…” And then he pressed a chaste kiss on David’s lips.

“Do you understand?”

David was used to walking in the dark. His days at the factory always started before the sun came up and ended after it had gone down, and he'd just put in his headphones and head home. He'd ignore the people on the streets and everything along the way, simply focusing on his own path and where he needed to be. Because when you meddled, when you saw things you shouldn't have--that's when you got hurt. It used to scare him too, the walk home... the sound of a car horn would make him jump, fill him with life-threatening panic, even if only for a few seconds. That's what David's world used to be. Stress. Bullshit. Panic. And poisonous, poisonous people. Tonight, though, he didn't fear what hid within the shadows. Why would he be afraid? The darkness should have feared Llewyn.

It was highly unusual for Llewyn to question his choices. He wasn’t the kind of creature to keep emotions as pointless and crippling as self-doubt and regret. Once his mind was made about something, it was very, very hard to unmake it. But with David, sometimes, he wondered just how much he could do, how far he could go, before reaching the limit of the boy’s mental fortitude, before doing something so egregiously wrong for a human conscience that he would end up pushing back, or worse, breaking down because of it.

That knowing, delightfully sinful smirk he’d been keeping the whole time softened and vanished. The warmth of David’s breath, the wetness of his lips still lingered on his hand. Llewyn felt oddly disarmed by it, and oddly compelled to stay there rather than move like he meant. He lifted a hand, gently placed his palm on David’s cheek, and slowly dabbed a bloodstain from his bottom lip.

“I don’t want to make a mess of you,” he said, smiling weakly and feeling more lucid than he had in a while. David seemed to have a knack for unwittingly bringing it out of him. “I like you as you are.”

Stilling smiling, still staring into David’s deep brown eyes, Llewyn took his boy’s hand in his and started backing, pulling him along until they were walking at a pace. “I want to show you so much,” he whispered. “But tonight… I’m just going to… take you to one place… Just you and I… alone.” His voice rose at that, and though there was no sign of it, Llewyn knew at once that his guard—all twelve of them—had backed away.

He was smiling. David felt his heart swell at the sight of it. It wasn't sinister, or hungry. It wasn't the type of smile you'd see a murderer give their victim, or a vampire their prey. No, sometimes when Llewyn smiled, it was just human. David was happy the light could co-exist with the dark.

Because sooner or later, death would come for this boy. And with every passing day, the more he believed it would be by choice. So if he'd still be David, if he'd still be as he was, the way Llewyn liked him, then maybe they'd be okay.  

It only took a second for the blood to be removed from his lip and David almost chuckled. "Better?" he asked, voice quiet like Llewyn's heart. He would make a mess of these unsuspecting humans, of other vampires, covering the streets with blood and guts. He'd paint himself from head to toe with their insides, without batting an eye. But one, small patch of blood on his boy and he was reaching for the washcloth—he still wished for David to be clean.

“You…” Llewyn’s movements, like his voice, were slow and tired-like. He rested his left hand on David’s right shoulder and moved around him, always keeping less than an inch of space between his body and the boy’s, his glassy, honey eyes trapped by David’s darker browns until the boy looked away from them. He stopped moving when they were face to face, chest to chest, and leaned in. “Want me to do it again…”

The vampire smiled, grazed the edge of his bloodstained lips on David’s. “Okay,” he said, voice soft like silk. “—but not tonight. I’ve taken my fill of lives for the night… Look at me…” He pressed a thumb on David’s chin and pushed slowly. “I could feel it… when you watched me. When you watched her. It almost made me want to let her go and come to take you instead… I still want to take you.”

Llewyn pressed his lips more intently on David’s this time, a real kiss and not just the tease of one. “And I can feel your shame now… I understand it. You still see the world through her eyes. But it’s okay, David… This is nature. This is what I do… what we do. This was my act, and it was done for my sake first. So you don’t have to carry the weight of her spent life. It’s just survival, plain and simple…”

Moving away from David then, after having been drinking in his warmth for the better part of the last couple of minutes, was the hardest thing Llewyn had to do that night. He ran his left hand down the length of David’s right arm, fingertips lingering on his palm for just a moment before falling limply at his side.

“Would you like to go home now…? Or do you want to come with me?”

Their lips touched for just a moment and David whined once it was over. So full of want and desire. Such a display of power left him wanting to fuck and fuck hard. There was a pattern, David had noticed. The day after he'd seen violence in Wales for the first time, when the same feelings came to him so intensely, he relieved himself in the library. The script was always the same. Llewyn would use his strength and make David howl. He'd push him to his limits. And he'd beg for it. 

Then do it, he wanted to say. Just take me. But then Llewyn kissed him, gave him some of what he'd been aching for. He could taste it, the blood of the fallen, and there was something intimate about it all. Tonight, David saw Llewyn kill without being provoked. There was no vengeance here. It was nature, he said, and although he struggled to undo over twenty years of learning what was right and what was wrong, he tried. 

David's eyes were locked on Llewyn's. So inviting. So deep. The touch of his thumb was cool and it relaxed him. He let out a shaking breath; the boy felt close to him, closer than he had the night he saved his life, or when he claimed him as his own. Because he was getting lost in the darker parts of Llewyn. 

"What are you doing to me?"

Though the bulk of his attention was on his meal and his meal only, Llewyn hadn’t completely forgotten about his boy. And he wasn’t far enough to let him forget in any case. Every bit as strong as the scent of the lifeblood spilling from this girl’s thigh was the smell of David’s… arousal. He smiled against her skin and bit deeper, drawing out more vitae to speed up the process—her demise, as if he couldn’t be rid of her soon enough. He was hungry, yes, but in more ways than either this vessel or his boy would suspect.

Her heart rate plummeted within moments, her body heat following not long after. He could feel her body shutting down, bit by bit, cell by cell, and it wasn’t quick enough. There was still blood in her—enough to keep his mouth on her thigh for a good five minutes more if he paced himself—but Llewyn wanted her dead already. He wanted to rip open her rib cage, pluck out her heart, and watch her twitch into oblivion as a bloody mess against the wall. That would be far too theatrical, though… not to mention inconvenient and unnecessary.

Llewyn siphoned out the rest of her blood, and pulled away abruptly, letting her body meet the ground gracelessly with a thud. There was a greater deal of blood on him now than he’d intended, a thick stream of red painting his lips and chin and neck; shining crimson rivulets falling from the corners of his mouth. He stared at the dead thing that had once been a girl barely out of her teens with blank, dispassionate eyes, and turned away.

“Edric,” he called out faintly, and on cue the sallow-haired servant stepped from beneath the shadows of a tree on the curb by the house’s front yard.

He bowed before Llewyn and simply said, “My liege.”

“This mess… Clean it.”

And then both Lord and servant vanished without warning.

“… So.” His voice a whisper, Llewyn pressed his lips against the side of David’s neck, standing behind him now when a second earlier he wasn’t. “How was it?”

So that was the guard's name.

David wondered if he had always been by Llewyn's side without his knowledge. It would have made sense, given his authority in the region. People who held that much power needed to be protected. And although he had been able to deal with the last group of challengers entirely on his own, and so effortlessly, the boy feared a match would be met one day.

It wasn't that he doubted him. It wasn't that he didn't believe Llewyn was a god among this race. Edric just gave him some comfort.

His eyes were fixed on the body.  Still and cold. A shell that only preserved the image of what she used to be. But not for long. She would rot soon. David blinked. Tried to figure out what that feeling was. 

Then she was gone, and Llewyn's lips seized his attention. They left a part of the girl with him; a smear of red on his neck. It was then David realized he killed this girl, too. The show was for him and he watched. 

He closed his eyes, tilting his head back as the whispers continued.  "I..." The warmth started in his back and traveled through the rest of his body. He turned to face the elder slowly. And then he was reaching out, thumb brushing across Llewyn’s chin before bringing it up to his own mouth. Just a quick taste.

He had only perused her mind long enough to the odd stray thought about her relatives, her life, her reasons to be where she was; but beyond those mostly useless factoids, the girl standing in front of Llewyn was a virtual stranger—and he preferred that way, not out of guilt, pity, or any other of myriad insipid human emotions he had long ago done away with; he preferred it that way because it was more fun. The colors of his questions about a vessel often proved more vibrant than whatever bleak answers he could pluck from their addled, pliant brains, so why bother with filling the gaps?

And then Llewyn started moving, circling the girl while regarding her with restrained interest, like one would a work of art or a piece of furniture before purchase. He carefully examined her arms and legs, and the crook of her neck, and what little of her shoulder blades the wide collar of her shirt left exposed, searching for injuries, scrapes, and blemishes, and smiling lightly when he found none. It was better when they were undamaged, though in a pinch it wouldn’t make too much of a difference.

“I don’t know your name,” he whispered, stopping at her back and moving closer; tilting his head and pressing his face to the side of her neck, his cold lips lightly grazing her throbbing aorta. “… But I will know you soon—and then no one else ever will… Anything to say to that? No? Mm…”

Then Llewyn blinked out of existence only to blink back in front of her, and flicked her on the forehead—flicked her with enough force to send her flying into a wall at a good twenty feet behind; her back making a loud, sickening crack as it hit the bricks. She didn’t get to slide down and meet the ground when the vampire was upon her, pinning her to the wall by pressing a hand to her stomach, while the other lifted her left leg, leaving her inner thigh exposed. That was where he laid his kiss, where he started feeding, and his lips wouldn’t leave it until her breath did her.

A century of silence fell between the vampire and his prey. He was watching her closely, perhaps trying to figure out where to start, what parts of this girl appeared to be the most appetizing. And when he began his rounds, when he moved closer and whispered a cold threat against the skin of her neck, he looked wicked.

It excited him.

What came next, he did not expect. Llewyn vanished and the girl was sent careening into a wall. For a moment, the sickening crack of her back allowed him to believe she was dead. But then he was right there, holding her up and making a snack out of her thigh. David's face was hot and his stomach flipped. Vicious sounds left Llewyn's mouth and the noises she was making... David wanted to shut her up.

When the whimpers and pained moans became few and far between, when the little energy she still had spilled from her feet, David was able to think. His eyes fluttered shut and he saw Llewyn hovering above him, holding him down against the bed, with that evil, evil grin. David grabbed the back of his head, frustrated, and pulled him into a kiss. His bottom lip was bleeding by the end of it, sharp teeth leaving a cut, and the boy knew it was on purpose. Llewyn bit into his neck afterwards; David moaned his name.  And then the vampire traveled south, feasted on the inside of his leg while one hand pumped his cock.  

Out on the street, David's breath was heavy and his palm gently rubbed against his bulge. "Destroy me," the human whispered to the sky.

Normal protocol dictated that he ought not to stand too long on that same spot in the middle of the street; that he should move into the shadows of the nearest wall or tree or bush and vanish from sight; that he ought to something about the boy watching ever so quietly from behind a shrub. That was how a vampire was supposed to do things in a territory where humans comprised the overwhelming majority of the population, all for the sake of drawing the least amount of attention and ensure the continued survival of the Kindred.

Well, to hell with normal protocol. Tonight, Llewyn wanted to make a show of it.

It was what David was expecting, and while before he’d made an effort to shield the boy from it, perhaps, the vampire had begun considering since that debacle at the den, he’d gone about this all wrong. Perhaps it was better if David saw everything, and saw it from him—at least it would keep him from wandering off into the sketchier areas of the city, where he might run into yet another unruly Coterie.

Normal protocol also dictated that he should find his way inside the home of his would-be meal, but David wouldn’t be able to follow, which meant Llewyn would have to deal with this business in the open space.

Another whiff of fresh night air and human smells passed through his nostrils. She wasn’t alone, but she was far away enough from the rest of her… relatives… to be drawn out into the open without making a fuss. Her… aunt and uncle… were sleeping upstairs, along with their lovely daughter, all in their own private bedrooms, personalized by a hundred stenches he did not care to categorize. But the guest bedroom was downstairs… and the window that faced the garden wasn’t locked.

That would do.

“Come out,” Llewyn whispered, eyes fluttering and turning a vacuous, misty grey.

And ten seconds later she did, wearing an old band tee and airy shorts for pajamas, her hair a long-flowing mess of blonde-ish waves, her stare vacant, her mouth agape. She almost lost her balance and fell into the grass while climbing from the windowsill, but her grip on the small brick ledge kept that from happening. And once her naked feet touched the humid ground she looked almost conscious, easily to meet the thing that in a moment or two would put an end to her life.

Llewyn smiled. Oh, how it amused him.

Game over. David froze - how long had he been aware of his whereabouts? Jerk probably noticed the second he started on his trail. Llewyn knew everything. He knew of his rage, his curiosity, and his new desires. He knew what he feared and what he was ashamed of. He knew David. So he slid the phone into the side pocket of his jacket, admitting defeat, and started to rise from the shrub. 

That was when she came. 

And suddenly his words made sense. She was entranced, face devoid of emotion, completely fixated on the creature who called out into the night for her. He’d been able to communicate with this girl, enter and manipulate her mind without touch. Without one eye piercing into another and without being near. Just how far could his influence travel? 

Vampires were endlessly fascinating. 

Llewyn captured David just like he did the girl. The way he moved, the way he spoke and the way he smiled as he watched her succumb to his power. The vampire he was seeing now was not the one he had laid eyes on in Covaire. Confidence was the same, but this Llewyn was flashier. Wouldn’t hesitate to display his gifts, all of them, and have fun. Never before had he seen a vampire turn another to flame, liquefy their insides, or reflect a barrage of weapons. He’d never seen a hunt and he’d never seen someone enjoy it. Life in Wales was far more interesting. Unrestricted. 

He wondered how he’d start tonight’s activity. Thought about whether it would be quick, almost painless, or if he would play with her, make her suffer like the fools that tried to challenge his reign. It would be a shame to come all this way for such a short show, he thought. 

For an Elder—in particular one as powerful as he was—Llewyn was quite certainly the old kind. While any undead of his age and rank could easily dispense with the trouble of having to procure one’s own sustenance, for Llewyn, the convenience of having a vessel at his disposal did not make up for the sheer thrill of an open hunt. It was one of few pleasures the five-hundred-year-old boy still allotted to his person, and in true vampiric fashion, he would only do it in the dead of night, well past the bedtime of all children and most other creatures of the living world.

Only when a city’s streets became as quiet as the aisles of a graveyard would Llewyn Tydd make his way through the silence and the gloom in search of blood.

Tonight his pace was easier, much less hurried than its usual blurring speed, and when before he’d taken to leaping across rooftops and balancing along power lines and telephone poles, now he walked the wide, paved roads and narrow, cobbled paths—pranced more like, skipping and humming like a child on his way to school or a playground or the home of a dear friend. He made a point of making some noise, though not so much that it would make him look conspicuous, and kept himself visible long enough to be noticed by human eyes.

He hadn’t yet picked out a vessel, though the houses that flanked the street he ambled through provided him with a wide selection. All he had to do was sniff out the best one and go for the kill. He took a whiff of nightly air, and a mix of earth and mist and fur and multitude of human smells assaulted his senses. And he tried to sift through them and make his choice a stray, unbidden thought assaulted him.

As he stared vacantly into the home of his would-be meal, Llewyn smiled and whispered: “…Should’ve brought those Cheetos…”

As David sat in the bush, he asked himself a question he’d asked multiple times already this evening: why? 

Llewyn left the mansion at roughly the same time each night and although they rarely discussed it, David was aware of the reason for his nightly stroll. Instead of choosing to remain home and sinking his teeth into the neck of his boy, he chose to go out to eat. Llewyn would never ask for David to give himself up, nor would David offer. 

So why did David find it necessary to follow the vampire, to see what he did to the unwilling and oblivious? And why did he feel like it was something that needed to be kept hidden? 

Perhaps he didn’t wish for Llewyn to hold back. He had shown restraint before, like during their first night together and every one going forward, and David believed the elder would still do whatever he could to shield him from his own violence if he had the choice. 

The night outside the bar, he did not have one. 

He waited. Listened to the vampire hum. Waited some more. Pulling out his phone, David fired off a few quick texts. 

Why can’t you hear a Pterodactyl going to the bathroom? 

Because the P is silent. 

I prefer this bed with you in it. 

Besides, his movements were silent and calculated. David was definitely cut out for a career in espionage.

They were no longer in the crowded part of the city. The homes were nicer here. And it was quieter. Would have been rather frightening if it weren't for the fact that he could scream at any moment and blow his cover.

He wasn't gonna blow it, though. Nope. He was good at this.

David stepped out from the tree he'd been camped out behind for a couple minutes, ready to make his move. He could get closer if he went quickly. But when it looked like Llewyn was about to turn around, he dove into a shrub. Closed his eyed. Prayed. Slowly poked his head out from the top.

Still undetected. Still a god.

David's tummy rumbled.

"That’s fine. Just know that you don’t have to be afraid of the outside world merely because of what happened tonight."

"I'll be walking into strange bars again in no time."

"I trust you to tell me if that ever changes…"

"I want to stay here tomorrow. I'd like to read."

"I’ll find a way… and in the meantime I’ll be here, ready to put an end to any and all things that can scare you like that."

"Okay."

"… Where you that scared, then? Don’t worry. I won’t let you be so scared again."

"Yes, it did. But you survived it, and that is why I will not yell. Because you’re still here. All my rage is gone already."

"Why are you still holding on to yours?"

"I want you to stop pretending that this didn’t affect you as much as you think it did, that you weren’t terrified, and worse, angry at your own helpless state, and that it didn’t feel good to watch them all die. I want you to accept that you saw darkness tonight, and you liked it. And I want you to understand that none of that makes you any less of who you are."

"I was lost." 

"Wanting me to hurt them some more doesn’t seem very forgiving… Unless there was another reason why you wanted me to keep it up."

"What the hell do you want me to say? That you took care of the girl too quickly? That I think you should have ripped out each of her teeth individually, then her tongue, before slicing her jaw off?" 

"Not in so many words, no… But it’s okay. The need for retribution is part of human nature… It’s nothing to feel bad about."

"I forgive the people who hurt me."