Hobbies and Writing

Colleen hated museums. She hated the way she knew the exhibits better than the researchers themselves and the way they made her long for things long gone.

The exhibits were the trees that held her fruit and water while she was Tantalus wandering through the Tartarus of time.

Museums held reminders, but this one held a memory. She could count the amount of times she had seen Nathaniel without a journal on one hand. Him and his journals were synonymous, the scratching of his pen as he spoke and listened, sketching the city as they watched from the shade.

To see his journals lined up in the center of display cases, sprawled out and open, raw and unfiltered–

Nathaniel never let her read his work. “It’s embarrassing,” he would say as he held it tightly above his head. “Write your own.” He would then call over his shoulder while she chased him through the streets.

It felt wrong to peek, but she crept closer, the empty exhibit of photographs filling with fuzz.

The muse is ingrained in history,

an image or text that transcends time.

They are easy to remember

unlike a name, sounds in the air.

People know our art, our work.

They do not know us.

It is the artist’s curse, a trade.

Our anonymous mark on history.

The words were faded and tea stains and time blurred the letters. When she read, it was his voice in her head. The plaque said it had been written nearly 300 years ago, donated to the museum from a private collector. It had been 5 centuries since she’d heard him yet his voice was clearer than a recording.

His next poem was displayed on the wall, a photograph of a journal page seeming gray under the moonlight.

She walked around and around, reading each word until the patterns and tone were scored in her mind.

Nathaniel Haddon, a lover lost to time, they called him. Why was he everywhere now? Why did his name have to cover the city? Posters and billboards, flyers and pamphlets all, celebrating a poet brought to righteous glory, another piece of history retrieved from time.

She hated time. She hated how it flowed around her, leaving her untouched to watch the world change. Its effects stood around her, rivers eroding, cities growing, and people changing.

She missed him. She missed how he laughed and how he smiled. She missed how he spoke, with endless stories and how he listened. She missed how he could understand old English and slang, matching her insults and firing back with equal tenacity. She missed how he was like her, a boulder in time’s riverbed.

She missed how he made her love life again, when the wonders of immortality had been long explored and a bore.

Perhaps it was this longing that brought her back.

And back, and back. Every night, from the opening night to the exhibit's last, she was there. Resting against a display case, surrounded by sorrows, pacing from one room to another then fleeing as the sun rose.

Now, the exhibit was packed up, its photographs and relics set in boxes. The walls were bare and the cases in the center of the rooms were empty the next time she broke in under the moonlight.

It was startling. The skeleton of what had become so familiar. Empty white walls, the stumps of displays with nothing under the glass. It was shocking, how in a few months, mere minutes of her life, something had become so concrete.

It had her standing still for seconds by the windows, heart aching at the sudden loss of Nathaniel once again, so preoccupied she didn’t sense the other presence in the room until they spoke.

“Colleen.”

“Nathan.” His name escaped her lips as an exhale of air, inaudible to mortal hearing, but clear to his supernatural senses. The light of the approaching sun grew stronger, the night sky palling then blushing, yet there they both stood.

For a moment, she couldn’t recognize him. Nathaniel looked different. His hair—once thick and braided down his back—had been hacked short, falling around his ears in gentle waves. Scars she didn’t remember tracked up his arms, dark against pale skin and tattoos danced on his shoulders. He held himself different too, more defensive, but that could just be because of her.

“You seem different.” His accent had changed, his cadence lighter and consonants softer. He had shared long ago that his accents were fabricated through practice, a clever guise to displace any suspicion. Any strange habits something to be dismissed as one from his travels rather than immortality.

“Of course I’m different.” He winced and Colleen paused. She hadn’t meant for her words to come out so sharp. “It’s not the renaissance anymore,” She softened her tone. “You’ve changed too.”

“Blending in with the times.” He agreed with a rueful smile. “You look beautiful.”

And, oh, She missed this too. The way he would compliment her, casually, despite the way her world paused each time. The way he could make her smile without trying.

“I read your poems,” she whispered.

“I saw. I thought you were a ghost when I first saw you.” He sounded relieved for a second,

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have read them,”

“It's fine.” He waved the issue away, cracking back with a joke, “They’re old. Everyone else has read them. It just shows how much you’ve missed me,” He laughed, “What a way to–“

“I have missed you.” The words split from her mouth unbidden. The way Nathaniel stilled would have been funny if her mind hadn’t frozen with panic. “I apologize.” she blurted, chest aching like her dead heart had remembered to beat.

She should leave. Centuries had passed and just like they said, they were both different. This Nathaniel was no better than a stranger.

“I will take my leave.” She turned, and fled, making her way through her usual route out of the museum, from the window to the rooftops with inhuman speed. She always wondered which would win—fight or flight. Now she knew.

“Wait!” His voice cracked the silence like a whip. “Don’t leave!” Her steps faltered, slowing by habit at the panic in his voice. She turned, ribbons of loose hair tangling with the cold wind as Nathaniel followed, appearing on the rooftop a ways across from her.

“Where did you go?” His question echoed in the night, raw and disbelieving. “I couldn’t find you.”

Her breath hitched as she halted, hands trembling despite her best efforts to still them.

“Where did I go.” She echoed, slowly, incredulously. Her voice shook, still soft but on the verge of fraying. She took a step back, “Where did you go, Nathaniel?” Her nails dug into her palms at her side and his flinch when she spoke his name coiled into something dark and satisfying around her dead heart.

“I searched for you for years,” she said, louder now. “Waited, on that bird dung ridden roof, for years.” Her words were coming faster, sharper. “When it snowed, when it hailed, when it was scorching hot.” She stalked towards him now, “And. You. Never. Came.” Her voice cracked, fury stretched too thin to mask the hurt growing beneath it.

“I was in a coma after the earthquake.” Her anger dimmed mid-breath, turning brittle and unsure.

“What?” Her voice was small again. Trembling and weak. Pitiful.

“I got hurt. The quake collapsed the cave I was resting in. Half my bones were shattered. I fed the night prior so I survived, but I had to Sleep.” He glanced away, voice lower. “When I rose, I looked for you. I did, I promise, but I. . . I had gone years without blood at that point, so I was weak and hungry. I lost control and I fell into a blood craze—I didn’t mean to, I just–”

His explanation rushed out faster the further he explained, answers to questions she had asked since they parted rushing out faster than she could comprehend. He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. “I was stupid and desperate and I lost control.”

“You were hurt?”

“Colleen?”

“I checked all our old haunts, every place you ever showed me, but I never found you so I. . . I thought you hated me.” Her voice was barely a whisper and Nathaniel’s stunned expression forced her to look away.

“I’ve never hated you!” He all but flew across the roof, her hands in his grasp before his words had even echoed off the rooftops, like if he held her long enough, tight enough, he could drag time backwards.

“I couldn’t bear the thought, but I couldn't find you, Nathaniel. You vanished. It was like you didn’t want to see me anymore. If I tried harder. . . If I'd known, I would have found you. You wouldn't have woken up alone. You wouldn’t have fallen into the blood craze. I-” Her voice faltered.

“I was alone for centuries, Nathaniel,” His grip tightened around her hands, pulling her closer. “I was alone because I deserved to be,” she whispered.

“No, no no no.” he tried to hush her. “You never—”

“I used your trust against you. You–” She paused, desperately trying to gather her thoughts. “I practically weaponized everything you told me.” She drew a shaky breath, the night air biting at her lungs. “Who does that? And I was a shit friend even before then–” Her voice was silenced by a finger against her lips.

“You’ve been carrying this all this time, haven’t you?” A sad smile tugged at his lips as he looked down at her, though she refused to meet his eyes. “I forgave you then, Colleen.

Silence stretched between them. She didn’t answer, didn’t look up at him, but she tensed, gently twisting her hand out of his grip.

“You weren’t the only one who said things they regret that night.” He murmured, tucking a stray strand behind her ear. “You weren’t the only one who said things they regret.” He paused, his mind running through memories of their past. “You were an amazing friend.”

Her breath stuttered. She could feel the ghost of his hand brushing her hair behind her ears and the phantom feel of fabric on her face. She wanted to believe him. Betrayal, doubt, fear. It all ached, but she wanted to believe him.

“I don’t know why I came here.” she started, ignoring his previous statement. her words dangled uselessly in the air between them, like her hands at her sides, slowly growing cold again. “I saw a flier and I just wanted to see. . . proof, I guess,” she trailed off, hating how timid and hesitant she sounded. “That you survived.”

His brow furrowed at the last part and she glanced away, heat rising to her face despite the small breeze.

“I didn’t even know if Nathaniel Haddon was one of your aliases or unrelated to you, but I needed something that proved you were real, that you weren’t something I made up to feel less alone.” she said quietly.

A beat passed.

“I thought you died," he confessed. His voice held a weight that time could not grant, only mourning.

“I thought you died too.”

A faint smile graced her lips, small and uncertain. “Well. . . I'm alive.”

“You are.”

She shifted, suddenly aware of how close they stood—close enough to touch, to fall back into the past, to remember the ease and comfort he brought.

Close enough to realize how much they had changed.

Close enough to realize that maybe, it was time to move forwards.

“I should. . . I should go” she said, even as her feet stayed rooted in place.

He gave her a faint nod but didn’t move aside. “If that’s what you want.”

Her lips parted, then pressed shut again. She stared at the rooftop tiles, at their uneven shapes, the shape of his boots, before finally looking up.

“I. . .I don’t know what I want,” she admitted slowly. “Could I stay?” She swallowed, “Just for a little while.”

The mission was over, the world saved, cities rejoicing and bright with a new light.

The mission was over, the people saved, families celebrating with relief and gratitude.

to be the chosen one was to accept the thanks, the job well dones from those who knew nothing. Those who were blind to the pain of the tugging of fate, to the apathy of the after.

The first time they met was an accident, Colleen’s white dress splattered with glistening crimson. It was a beginner’s mistake, really. She hadn’t spilled her food in decades, yet the man in the entranceway of the alley had startled her. Seeming to appear out of the night, he had been quick and quiet, just like her. An absence of noise in a city by the ocean, perpetually flooded with the crashing of waves and yells of merchants and sailors.

Colleen was gone before he took another step, her prey crumpling to the floor in a continued daze while blood leaked from their neck. She could hold her own in a fight, but the new blood would make her sluggish and prone to mistakes. The man had seemed strong and she could find more blood elsewhere.

The next time they met was also an accident, if not a months later. Another alleyway, another sunset, nearly the same as their first chance meeting, except it was Coline who had followed the faint scent of blood, silently and quickly tracing it back to a cramped and dirty alleyway.

The man didn’t startle, not like she did when he noticed her, but he did detach his fangs from his prey’s neck, taking care to stop the trickle of blood.

“You took off fast last time” He greeted, a thick accent lacing his words. 
 “Forgive me for being cautious when another vampire interrupts my meal.” Colleen shrugged, projecting calm and indifference.

“Yet you stop mine.” He tossed his hair back, using his hand to tuck away one last dark curl.

“Consider it payback. You seemed finished anyways.”

“I am. Call me Nathaniel.” He tilted his head in a slightly greeting.

“Colleen. You’re new to the area.” She stated, failing to place his accent.

“I was searching for my first meal in the city when I came across you.” He gave her a wry smile, a direct contrast to the storminess in the set of her stance.

“Stay out of my way, and don’t make the humans suspicious. It’s been a decade since they staked one of us and they’ve only just started to relax.” She took a step back, preparing to return to her original mission for her outing. As she reached the end of the alley, his shout echoed throughout the night.

“Wait!” She whirled around at the desperate shout, her dress flaring around her as she heard the crunch of gravel against stone bricks. 
 “Can we meet again? Tomorrow?” At her confused face, he continued. “You are the first other vampire I’ve seen since I’ve come here. Forgive me for wanting some easy company.” He finished with a wry smile.

Collen paused, head tilted as she ran over his proposition. His eyes wide and hopeful like a little kid begging for sweets before dinner.

“Sure. I’ll meet you here after sunset.”

Colleen learned about Nathaniel as he talked, deciphering his accent until she was fluent. He was a writer, a poet. He was bad at sculpture and pottery, yet still loved the process and changed piles of clay leftover. He missed the sun, even if he preferred to see the stars and read by moonlight. He still ate garlic despite the resulting rash and hives. His laugh was loud and unique, a snort that spilled into cackles that shook his body.

Nathaniel was different. He was a contradiction to the life she had led. He broke the monotony and for once, in the near century since her night of blood and terror, she felt free.

Her last memory of Nathaniel had him with a face of shock, eyes widened and lips slightly parted as her words echoing throughout the night, again and again, bouncing off the crumbling stone walls, to the trees, to the ground, to the world, until it only remained in her ears to the beat of her heart and breath.