Hopes and Dreams

It wasn’t enough to depose Sebastian LaCroix.

It wasn’t enough to see him executed through the proper channels, on his knees and begging for his life until the very last.

No, the Ventrue Primogen took Sebastian’s offenses a little more personally, as a fellow clan member. And of course, Strauss obliged in letting him handle LaCroix himself.

LaCroix was dragged into a dungeon in the sewers, just before dawn on the night the scarcophagus was taken from him. The night he lost everything. It was a bit of a blur after that, probably because he was trying to block out the memories of how he’d pleaded and fought, of trying to stand and being kicked down again, and again, and again... But he did remember a great deal of talk about how he had “disgraced us all” and how every shred of his own dignitas would be stripped from him in turn. It was restrained enough, in its way. No prolonged torture. Just the cell door closing above him with a rattle of keys. There was no reason the execution had to be anytime soon, the Primogen had informed him. He had plenty of time to rot down here.

At first, there was time to rage, to cry, to plot revenge. But after a few weeks, desperation took hold in earnest. He was in so much pain he could hardly think. His veins ached from the inside out with growing hunger.

But it always could (and would) be worse.

One day, there were clicking boots down the corridor. Idle, lighthearted, accompanied by joyful humming.

And there was a faint squeaking. No. He couldn’t be bringing…

A rat. An enormous, filthy, foul-smelling rat appeared around the corner, clutched in one gloved hand. Sebastian’s captor appeared next, grinning wickedly. They stared at each other for a long moment before he swallowed and forced himself to speak. “What is…you don’t mean…”

“Oh yes. Dinner is served.” He held the deplorable thing through the bars, wriggling and squeaking, and didn’t move a muscle. Sebastian just recoiled from it.

“Twenty-three days you’ve left me down here, and the first word out of your mouth is an unamusing joke. Lovely. Now bring me something that’s not poison.” The thought of being expected to eat that thing was already making him nauseous.

The Primogen just kept up with that maddeningly smug expression. “Traitorous rats get what they deserve. You are what you eat, after all.” He dropped the rat onto the dusty cell floor, where it scrambled away through the bars, seizing the freedom that Sebastian was denied. “Not hungry? Pity. You’ll look so gaunt at your execution.” He began to turn away.

“Come back at once!” LaCroix shouted after him, his voice rising in volume to follow the man down the corridor. “You want to talk to me about disgracing us? This is completely unbecoming! To play with a former Prince this way, like it’s some idle game to you! Torturing a political prisoner without due process! Your own sadism has run away with you! Can you possibly understand what I've done for this city? This is the behavior of the Sabbat! A SABBAT! Do you hear me!?” There was no answer. Sebastian let out a wordless noise of frustration, somewhere between a grunt and a scream. He sunk to the floor, and was mortified to find himself wishing he’d made a grab for that rat before it could skitter away.

The worst part was that the Primogen had been right. He would look gaunt at his execution. Absolutely ravaged, in fact. His beautiful suit was absolutely destroyed – coated in dirt and torn from being thrown against the rocky ground. His hair hadn’t been combed in weeks. And he could feel the cracks in his bloodless lips, could feel his veins collapsing on themselves. He was so thirsty, so hungry… he’d already gone days without a proper meal before everything unraveled. He’d been too preoccupied, pacing all day and night with nervous energy, sensing the oncoming storm but powerless to prevent it. And now, the hunger was so intense it deepened the cold in his bones and resonated against chilled, damp draft from some vent system up above. The former Prince clutched at his own arms and shivered. He’d never felt more like a corpse.

The next feeding time, just twenty-four hours later, wore out his patience. At the presence of a heartbeat, any heartbeat, his instincts took over and he snatched the rat right out of the Primogen’s hand, sinking into it like a drumstick and gnawing furiously.

The taste was absolutely rank. It shocked him so much that he remembered himself and managed to drop it, stumbling backward away from its hideous scent and setting his jaw tight in an effort not to give this asshole the satisfaction of seeing him vomit. But it seemed he didn’t want to leave until he’d seen a show. He laughed uproariously and bent down to stare at LaCroix where he’d doubled over on the floor. “Dear me, is it not edible to you? Poor thing. Unfortunately, you no longer deserve food.”

Sebastian shuddered but held his ground. Breathe. Breathe. Don’t be sick. Think of nice things. His warm bed up in the penthouse. A fresh Marlboro just before sunrise. The Primogen’s head on a pike.

The Primogen tsked in annoyance and finally walked away. Sebastian exhaled in relief but had to hold his breath again immediately to keep from retching.

If the blood did him any good, he couldn’t tell. The nausea eventually faded, but his stomach hurt terribly, and his body broke out in fever. He spent the night pulling his coat closer around himself and cursing the mistake. If anything, he seemed to be worse off.

The second time, he couldn’t keep it down. Again, his body acted without permission, overtaken with frenzy at the sight of food, and seized the rat at once. But, further weakened this time, he vomited immediately, clinging to the bars for support. Tears of effort and humiliation coated his face. He couldn’t look at the Primogen and kept gazing into the far corner until the bastard was done gloating and left.

It was difficult to say how many times this happened. The Primogen must have decided this was an enjoyable game, because he played it nightly. It was always the same. He’d hold out the rat, Sebastian would take it, and he’d suffer the consequences, whether or not he kept the blood down. He could feel the poison working against his body. He no longer paced around the cell, merely huddled in a corner, too weak to move. The poison of the Primogen’s words worked on him too. He had disgraced the Ventrue name, hadn’t he? He had failed. He deserved this, much as he may curse the man for giving him exactly what he deserved. If he’d only fought harder, gotten to the sarcophagus faster… he tried to push these thoughts away over and over, but they always came back. He couldn’t last long this way – soon enough, torpor would take hold. It would probably be a mercy.

Sebastian had come to expect sickness whenever footsteps descended the stairs. So, when he heard a slightly different gait one night, it took a moment to register.

Once the familiar wave of dread wore off, he realized these sounded like heavy combat boots. “Who’s there?” Instantly wary, he struggled to his feet but just swooned back against the wall again, trembling from the effort. He glanced around the cell, realizing what an absolute mess it was, the dirt floor covered in rejected blood. His clothes were no better. Damn it all. They were probably coming to take him to his final death, and in this state too…

It was, in fact, the only possible visitor worse than that. A white T-shirt and jeans and an ugly denim button down hanging open. Grizzly muscle and a shit haircut and cheekbones too chiseled for marble. Nines Rodriguez.

He took a long look at LaCroix and whistled. “Jesus…Fuckin’ Camarilla. What did they do to you?”

Sebastian answered his pity with a glare. “I ca – “ his voice rasped almost enough to make him inaudible and he had to try again. If there had been any blood left in his body, he would have blushed furiously. Why couldn’t Nines be trying to behead him instead of staring directly at the red stains on his collar? “…I can’t imagine what concern of yours that might be. What…how can you be here of all places? Have they already sunk so low as to ally with the Anarchs?”

Thankfully, Nines demanded no further information. “Gettin’ weapons.” He pulled out the ring of keys the Primogen had carried. Sebastian noticed it was dripping with blood. “You’re ‘weapons.’”

“Pardon me?”

“You want to put Strauss through the Venture company paper shredder for whatever happened here? The rest of ‘em too? Well, let’s do it. Common enemies and all that. Don’t worry, I’ll still kill you after.” The door swung open. Open. The door was open. But Sebastian couldn’t move. He opened and closed his mouth, wondering how precisely to convey to Nines that he couldn’t walk at present without dispelling the illusion of his own usefulness.

Nines swore again. “They really did a number on you.”

Sebastian bristled. There was absolutely no need to dwell on that. “What, do you think you’d look any better if you were in my place?”

“No, I just – look, shut it for a second, I’m just trying to think what to do. Wish I’d brought blood bags, but they’re back at the base. I didn’t think it would be this bad, but…” he shook his head, resigning himself to something. “Listen, this is about to be a bad time for both of us.” He bent over LaCroix, who tensed away from him. With unfathomable alarm, he realized he was about to be scooped off the ground.

“Don’t!” he hissed, “You can’t! I’m – “ disgusting. Revolting. Unworthy even to be touched by an Anarch. And the Anarch was equally disgusting by his very nature. Which of them, he wondered, would really sully the other more?

“Pipe down before you get us caught.” Nines did hesitate though, long enough to take off his jacket. He wiped the blood and sweat and dirty tear tracks from LaCroix’s face despite yelps of protest, and then wrapped it backwards around Sebastian’s chest like a blanket. The denim wasn’t the softest, but it was intoxicating, suffused with Nines deep into the fabric…with the scent of his blood…blood that wasn’t rat blood, and smelled so rough and musky and…