The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Dasius, Part 3 - Beautiful Boy

"Laurent, ne pas y aller. Il est pas le bon moment." Don't go over there. It's not the right time.

Laurent looked up at me from the padded chaise and brushed his wet eyes with the back of his arm, covering it with thin blood. I withered under his unmistakable pique. "Pardon? C'est quoi?" he demanded. "De rien?" Excuse me? What was that? Nothing? Nonsense?

"Ah, oui, de rien. De rien. Je m'excuse, moi."

He had forgotten me already, putting up his platinum curls, tying his hair in a knot on the crown of his head. Wearing his hair in this way displayed his neck exquisitely, and I could see the tension in his muscles, in his back. Months past, at least four months, he had abruptly abandoned his routine. He had been then around the house quite a lot, refusing to speak to me about his lovers or his life, and then suddenly he had broken Miou's neck, his favorite's child. I had known of course that he was under a lot of strain, a lot of pressure, but for what he had done, I could find no words.

He spared no affection, snapping at me, "Your opinions on my life are garbage," in clipped English. "You are thinking that what I want most in the world is impossible, my lover, my life. Are you a diviner? Do you know the future? Do you want me to stay here with you, and with your brother, as chattel, a victim, a beast to be milked? You want my body and my blood for yourself?"

"I would never hurt you," I said, quietly, quailed, my hands where he could see them, palms out.

"Ah yes, we will see won't we? You are only waiting for your chance."

"Laurent, you cannot think that's true. You cannot think that's true,"I begged, for he had broken through my defenses completely with that. "I have always considered your interests. I am for you. You are my blood."

He was so angry with me, and I couldn't see why, looking at me so hard I worried he would pop a vessel in his eye.

"At least let me come down the hill with you."

"There is always wrong," he said, an alarming note of hysteria in his voice. "There is always something else. They will always leave me for something better. It is always the same," he begged. "Do you not know that? Do you not understand that I need for Bell to be different? I have given him time. I have given him everything I can give. Only do you think that he can love me? That he might? D?"

"You're tired, my love. Won't you come to bed awhile and rest? It will wait until tomorrow. I promise. You're ranting."

"No I have to do it now," he said, though he made no move to go.

I held my hand out and he took it, the band of his overlarge signet ring pressing against the bones of my fingers. I winced under the sudden pain of it, hoping that he wouldn't see the look and let go of me quickly. "Down the hill," I said, to reassure him or myself, I'm not sure. "We are going down the hill."

"He hates me," Laurent murmured, letting me move him towards the front hall. "He would rather court death."

"Bell doesn't hate you. You know that. He's having a hard time, that's all. You'll see. When he's better, he'll tell you himself."

From out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of kohl-lined eyes watching me from under the stairs. At my glance, Leechtin lifted his head, widening those eyes in the shadow of the landing.

"He's watching me again," I whispered.

"He wants to suck your soul out through your nose," Laurent whispered, as if it were boring. His body quivered in my arms, tired from crying.

In the weeks after he had broken Miou's neck in the solar, he had not been able to contact Leis or Jackie, who had left the house directly. Jackie had barely waited out the evening following, catatonic, completely unresponsive. Laurent had spent the evening writing long letters, ripping them up, and writing them over. He guarded his rubbish bin like an injured lion, refusing entreaty. After that he had asked me to bleed him, insisting that his humors were unbalanced and the blood in his veins was poisoning him. After one bleeding, he insisted that the problem had not been fixed. I bled him five times. He asked me to shave off his hair. I refused.