Love me and the Blood is yours

Insensatez

He tries to contain his speeding heart, knowing too well the two thousand years make each thrum echo like madness. Marius has too-often fallen prey to the passionate and emotive side of his mother’s blood. He might bemoan it later that he didn’t inherit his senator father’s penchant for composed reason, but right now, all he can do is fight the fight of trying to seem “non-chalant” about Armand’s invitation. Marius needs to convey indifference and deny passion.

“This is the space I have saved for your crypt,” His fledgling declares, perfectly nailing it.

Marius looks around the reformed wine cellar which his child is renovating into a sealed crypt. A wide chamber he will most likely separate into private rooms for his loved ones and perhaps a shared morgue with shelves for visitors, lined with coffins. His theatre was fabled for its practicality in housing the dead. He wonders if it'll use candles... Or electric candles.

The roman gulps, hoping the sound wasn’t audible. But it most definitely was. “Is it deep enough? I am not sure New York basements are safely sealed off from the living and there’s plenty of them in Manhattan.”

“Well it’s not exactly six-feet under, master, but,” he opens his arms and they slap back at the side of his trousers before crossing at his chest. “That’s as deep as my team can get them.”

Marius shivers, feeling something akin to nervously sweating when he hasn’t sweat in eons. That was obviously the wrong question.He collects himself for a minute so he does not stammer. Not in front of his son.

“I do not doubt your engineers for a minute.”

Armand sighs, “I appreciate your concerns. But this is as best as one can get in Manhattan, master. I did what could be done.”

His tone is comprehending so this is a net positive. Marius nods, refusing to overthink. He has saved this conversation. 

The roman paces around what Armand has just said will be his crypt. That means he’s getting one of his own. Which means he’s still counted among Armand’s loved ones. Obviously, thus, he can afford to be excited about this. A part of him almost wishes to joke that he isn’t an elderly man to need a room in his son’s home, and that he might occupy one of the guest coffins, but he cannot. Not with the veil between them and not after all that has trespassed and which is known. But neither does he want to be reduced to a guest in his child’s home. He wants a crypt of his own. Marius’ crypt in Armand’s home. This is everything. This is proof that maybe someday, their coffins will be side by side like it was in Venice. Having his own chamber is a prelude to matching coffins.“I love it, I much prefer west facing rooms.”

He hears Armand mutter a quiet “I know you do. ‘As if I could catch a glimpse of the sun if I stepped outside fast enough.’” His fledgling fixes himself up. “I will finish the wall linings and framing for your coffin. Any specific material you want?”

“You know what I like.”

Armand nods, “Solid gold with red velvet lining, then?”

“Ah, so you do know what I like.” Marius says, flirty on purpose.

His child looks so lovely when he blushes it drives Marius mad. How can a boy this lovely exist and how can a vampire blush at five centuries old? He watches his little lover pace around the room as if planning his designs, taking wide steps as if measuring and confirming he has saved enough space for Marius’ crypt. How charming he pouts once done, facing Marius before timidly looking away.

“I’ll finish preparations and make sure your door is heavy enough that nobody can move it. Or maybe only you can move it. Maybe. It will be the safest room in the house.”

What wonder! “Why?”

“So I can lock you up and make sure you never escape or leave me again,” he rapidly fires back before rolling his eyes so fast it doesn’t give Marius time to feel a sliver of hope. “I don’t want you in harm’s way in case of an attack.”

“I appreciate it, but I worry about you.”

“How new.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense for your room to be the safest?”

“No.”

A mild, bubbling rage besieges Marius. How condescending of Armand to think he needs protection, as if Marius needed a reminder that he failed to keep his fledgling out of harm. It should not be the fledgling’s role to keep its master safe. He will not be called out on his failure when it has cost him everything and when he’s been enduring its penance for centuries now — five hundred years thinking his Amadeo is lost, and half a millennia waiting in foolish hope that it could ever be otherwise.

“Your room will have the best security in the house.” Marius declares.

“So passionate about my safety all of a sudden, master,” His son squints, scoffing. “Make it so in your house. The safest crypt in my Trinity Gate will be yours, Marius.”

Fury makes the cellar red. He turns from Armand and his frustration to look at the cold, damp and empty chamber, and the red is so scarlet that Marius boils.

“Well, I see my advice is unwarranted, and my wisdom, dismissable. I am happy to take the west facing crypt. You may do as you please with your security,” he says, turning to leave.

“I’ll make sure I can also open your crypt, albeit it will be with some effort. That way I can hide in it in case of an intruder, or lock the bastard up until reinforcements arrive…”

Marius faces Armand again, crossing his arms. His first instinct is to reiterate how right he is that Armand should be kept safe. That Armand has been abducted once. And that Armand’s theatre has been under attack and destroyed by an outsider, even if with his grace.

But something about what his child said fills Marius with a different type of warmth. The idea of Armand finding safety within Marius’ chambers fills him with something worse than keltoi passion — giddiness. Marius almost wants to giggle. But giggling is for children, not fathers.

“A wise decision,” he praises.Armand almost rolls his eyes. “I will hide here if worse comes to pass.”

Marius’ memories flash hooded figures dragging a screaming Amadeo away while Marius is surrounded by fire and he blinks, not noticing he’s taken a step towards Armand involuntarily. It does take him by surprise that his son has done the same so the space between them has basically vanished.

“I’d rather you fled. I’d rather you ran away in the advent of an intruder. I’d rather you didn’t try to fight and just saved yourself, child…”

“I can’t do that. I am the oldest vampire in Trinity Gate.”

“Still…”

“Your crypt will be safe. It will be a place for me to hide, or for me to put my children in, should I have to fight.”

Suddenly the fire within transforms heartbeats in palpitations and now Marius is absolutely sure the loud thrums of his speeding heart can be heard. He remembers the absolute terror Lestat felt near the parents and dreads the night his Amadeo might find his own heart a sounding horror.

Marius pulls his fledgling to an embrace, holding him as close to his heart as flesh will allow before merging. He kisses Amadeo’s vagrant curls that have been trimmed short tonight, kissing his earlobes and clavicle, then each of his eyelashes. His fingertips trace Amadeo’s gently masculine jaw, finely sculpted with his youthful, almost genderless manliness. His lips are as soft as his porcelain, marblesque skin that always feels warm to a vampire as old as Marius. He reminds himself that they are here, now, in the present, safe and a phone call’s distance from one another, even if it feels like the time is never right. Marius could summon Armand to his hearing with Maharet just as easily as his fledgling called on him for opinions on his new house. Marius permits himself to wholly enjoy the presence of Amadeo in his arms and life. How rare and delightful that Amadeo lets him, even if for a little while.

However, eventually his fledgling separates himself, taking two careful steps back and resuming his effortless, non-chalant pose, both hands in pockets and mildly vacant, indifferent stare. 

“I will get preparations underway,” Armand says, and his voice conveys a desperation for pretending the brief moment of weakness displayed by both never happened.

“Alright, great,” Marius replies, just as eager to keep up the façade of distance. 

“It will be ready by the next time you visit.”

“Call me and I’ll come,” Marius says wholeheartedly, once again failing in being more composed than detached.

Armand looks at him for a very long minute that makes it clear he won’t be calling anytime soon. The maddening, lovely blush is the only proof of their embrace, seconds ago, and the only evidence of their long, complicated lifestory.

But for now, it seems, they’ll both keep trying  to convey indifference and deny passion.