lucky man A Vampire Chronicles story by _Twi_ (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) , January 1998. Number seven in the "Le Coeur" series; sequel to _"Cold."_ (http://blood.less.as/hearts/cold.html) Rated PG-13 for homoerotic situations (Louis/OMC).
Midnight, alone on a pavement...but the creature sitting on the bench is not a cat. The long, slender lines of his body attest to his humanity, though the subtle grace of the limbs is distinctly feline. The only light in the park is that of a streetlight several dozen yards away, but we can see him clearly, as silent observers always can. His hair is black and glossy, his eyes a bright emerald, mixing, at the moment, with ruby...ah! A jeweler's dream, these eyes. Set in a face of marble, they are a true work of art, indeed. The only sound in the park is his sobbing, his quietly-spoken words, meant only for his own ears, but we can hear them: "Why does he do this to me? Why does he make my existance one of misery? I wish I'd never been born, sometimes. I should never have gone back to him..." But we are not the only ones to overhear this private conversation. Enter the hero of the tale, stage right. And now that the stage is set, we can listen fully to the story... Louis looked up, ceasing his soft sounds of self-pity as he noticed the figure sitting beside him on the bench. "Hello. Care to talk about it?" The young man arched a pale eyebrow at him, an expression somehow mingling bemusement and genuine concern crossing his face. Louis froze, eyes alone moving up as he examined this man who had managed to sneak up on a vampire. His clothes were average, of little consequence: A white dress shirt, tight white jeans clasping his long, slender legs, white work boots, a long white coat. The features of his face, however, were extraordinary: Skin as pale as his, and eyes brighter: one a vivid swimming-pool blue, the other a twilight shade of violet. His hair was white as frost, and looked softer than the fur of a rabbit. Louis' fingers itched to stroke it. But all of these seemed mundane details; the feature that really drew Louis' eye was the subtle, but definitely present, glow about him. Almost a halo... "Who are you?" "My name is Jessamy. Of course, that's not who I am at all...it's only a name...but the question you meant to ask was more along the lines of what am I, am I right?" "So, what are you, then?" The glow intensified. "Louis. I think you know." And his hands came up suddenly, gently grasping Louis', and Louis did know. "An angel..." he breathed. "Not exactly the kind you're thinking of, but yes, that's basically it. Look, I even have wings." And Louis could see them, see through the illusion that had hidden them, see the down-soft black feathers curving up past his shoulders, over his head, down his back in a velvet cascade. "I'm an angel in the sense that I am a supernatural being, in the service of a greater supernatural being. But then, that could be said of you, couldn't it?" Louis raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps." "But I'm not from the supernatural being you're thinking of. Or the other one, either." His eyes twinkled, a smile crossing his face. "He would have better things to do than send messengers to harrass you, anyway." "Thanks." Louis gazed off into space, feeling the tears start again. "Is there a point to this visit, or did you just come to mock me?" "Louis, I came to talk to you. To tell you things. So please listen to me, okay? Do us both a favor." "So talk. I'm sorry. I'm not in a mood for listening." "That's why I'm here." A pause. "I used to be like you, you know, back when I was mortal. Actually, I was worse. No, really. I thought I was smarter than everyone else, better than everyone else. I put myself on a pedestal above humanity, sneering at my fellow humans, at their shallowness, thinking only I understood things. And at the same time I hated myself. I was certain I was drawing the hatred of others because I was unworthy of love, because hate was all I deserved. I would lash out at the world against my own self-loathing, and then be genuinely surprised when the world sent back enough to stoke the flames of despair and rage within me higher and higher." "Ah," Louis said, remembering his mortal life, seeing himself in Jessamy's words. "No, you live a different sort of misery. But my point is this: The life you live is the one you choose." "Then it is my fault. I chose this life." "You misunderstand me. There is nothing inherently wrong with vampirism. You beat yourself up needlessly over that." "I kill people for their blood." "Louis." Jessamy's voice was slow, patient, as if he were describing a foreign concept he did not expect to be understood, but had to explain anyway. "You and your kind have never understood that death is not a bad thing. Which is understandable, since I doubt that any of you would have chosen immortality if you weren't afraid of dying. But every person you kill would die anyway, and it's never evil to give someone a good death...if I were mortal, I would much rather die in your arms, O Merciful Death, than in a home for the elderly, abandoned by my family and friends, left to rot, to die a lonely death. Or in a drive-by shooting. Or of a heart-attack in my thirties. But may I continue?" "Go on." "I decided I was sick of living, my twenty-third year. And so I chose to make a journey to the ocean, to throw myself to the waves. I always had a melodramatic streak. My home was over a hundred miles from the sea, and I had a long way to go. "And along the way, my perceptions of the world started to change. Sometimes people need the courage to walk into the wild wood of madness to find truth, you realise. In a solitude I had rarely known previously, I thought over everything. I started to think about the world around me, and the world within me. And I realised that what you give to one is what you receive in the other. A very simple concept, but you'd be surprised how few people think of it. "I had never believed in the Christian god, and I still didn't by the time I reached the ocean, but by then I didn't need to. I believed in the trees and the sky and the earth beneath my feet. Everybody needs something to believe in, even if they claim to believe in nothing, Louis." And now he gave Louis a gentle look, a knowing look. "By the time I reached the sand of the beach, I saw my death not so much as an escape from an oppressive world I needed to leave, but a gift, a sacrifice. I had gone too far to turn back. "And as I slid beneath the waves, I thought of love. I thought how sad it was, that there were so many people like I had been, people without love, and I wished I could help them see as I had. And I saw, when I died... To describe it would be like trying to tell what a colour tastes like, what a song smells like. The love I always had inside was freed. That's how I became what I am. Now I help people like yourself." "How...what do you do? Do you make people become...what you are?" "No. I help people realize what they could become. Anyone can be an angel, Louis. Everyone has an angel living in their heart...all you have to do is reach inside and let him out. And you don't have to do it on your dying breath, like I did." "Look...Jessamy...I know you're trying to help. But I lost my goodness, my humanity, when I became this." Something very much resembling mortal impatience crossed the angel's face. "Goddess you vampires are exasperating. Even the non-religious ones, like your Lestat. Such rigid definitions of good and evil, you have." "'Non-religious'? I thought you were an angel." "Angels are spiritual beings. Spirituality and religion are not only not the same thing, but often they're completely opposite. Your religion, for instance, encourages people to wallow in self-pity, so that the only good they can see is not in themselves, not in others, but in their God. So busy finding the evil in their hearts and the good in their God that they cannot find the good, the God inside them. So wrapped up in their fear of death and what comes after that they don't even notice the life all around them." "So what should I do?" "Look inside yourself. Look at the world. And for Goddess' sake cheer up. I'm serious. I know vampires are only supposed to mope in candlelit rooms, or sneer and grin fangish grins, like your Brat, but every stereotype needs an exception, you know. I mean, who would listen to me if I went about in billowing white robes and flaming sword, saying Thee and Thine all the time? How dull. But I digress." He rubbed his forehead with a slender finger. "My point is...point...oh dear, it would appear that I've forgotten my point. See what you do to me! But what I mean to say is this: You'll only be happy if you want to be happy. Some people who live in darkness choose to do it to better understand the light...but it is the tendency of your type to condemn yourself to it, a self-imposed exile, a penance for an invented sin. You need light." "Lestat is light." "Yes. You suit each other like a yin-yang. But you reflect his light like the moon, and the moon is a very cold, desolate place. Don't ask how I know," he said, winking. "You could shine like a star in the summer night, my love, if only you would let yourself. Use that self-absorption for some introspection. But not to the point where you is all you think about." Louis smiled. "'Navel-gazing,' as they call it these days." "Yeah. Though it's a bad name, really. Navels are lovely. I could gaze at yours for hours." A grin crossed his pale face, giving him a momentary devilish look, as Louis blushed. "Oh come now, you have to be used to comments after all this time." Louis turned away. "No. Lestat calls me the Beautiful One, but I've never really known why." "Louis, you know why. You're gorgeous." "Really, I'm not," he whispered. "I've never seen myself as beautiful." "My Goddess, it's in one ear, out the other with you, isn't it?" He sighed. "No wonder you and Lestat have these spats all the time - you're a lot more similar than either of you will admit. Neither of you will listen to anyone else's warnings or advice or compliments. Set in your ways." He put two fingers to his lips in a very human expression of apology. "Sorry. I didn't need to say that, even though it's true. But if you really aren't going to listen to me, could you do me a favor?" "What?" "Drink from me." The wings suddenly enfolded Louis, surrounding him in a midnight-velvet darkness, and he felt the warm, gentle pressure of Jessamy's fingers against the back of his head, twining in his hair, urging his lips to his throat. "But I can't..." Louis' eyes searched for Jessamy's in the dark, only catching on them when they started to give off a pale luminescence. "Why not?" Small quirk of a brow. "I...don't know. I just know I can't." "Louis, try it. And stop avoiding me, I'm not fragile. You can touch me." The slender fingers clasped behind Louis' back, and he felt the soft brush of lips against his cheek. "No." Louis pushed Jessamy away, untangling himself from the limbs and wings to stand beside the bench. "Fine," said Jessamy. "If you really don't want it..." and with that, he seemed to vanish into the trees. Louis' mind tried desperately to suppress the primal urge to hunt and capture triggered by the flight of prey, but it was useless. He followed in the direction he knew Jessamy had gone, moving with preturnatural speed. He could hear his breath just ahead of him, a faint sound of laughter, and he knew he was doing this partly because Jessamy willed it so...but only partly. He felt his hands grab Jessamy's shoulders from behind, whirl him around, slam his back into a tree before he could blink. His fingers formed flesh-and-bone handcuffs, holding Jessamy's slender wrists against the rough bark. "Well," he panted, "you've caught me. But now what are you going to do with me?" Louis felt one of his hands catching both wrists behind Jessamy's back, freeing the other to yank Jessamy's head back by the hair, exposing his pale throat, the blue-violet tracery of veins visibly throbbing with his heartbeat. His fingers lingered in the frost-white silkiness of his hair, stroking and petting as though Jessamy were an exotic cat. He pressed a series of small, delicate kisses along the jugular, exploring with his lips, before gazing up at the sharp glint of Jessamy's eyes, glittering at him as he said, huskily: "Just do it, Louis, you know you need it." Louis eased his grip on Jessamy's hair, letting his head drop forward, and caught his mouth with his own. Jessamy's tongue slid almost greedily against his own, pressing against a fang, puncturing itself, and Louis moaned as his mouth filled with the angel's blood. He gasped as Jessamy pulled back suddenly. "Stop holding back. Please. Just take me." He arched, pressing his neck against Louis' lips. He gasped, almost hissing, as Louis' fangs broke the skin, driving down into the vein. Louis' mouth sucked hard at the small wounds, bruising the tender flesh as he drank hungrily. Love and love and love in the vampire's kiss...only reversed. Drinking Jessamy's blood was like drinking light and fire, and the thoughts that accompanied it were...indescribable. And it dawned on him Jessamy was light and fire, that the pretty human shell was a cover for something huge, all-encompassing. Like drinking from the sun itself. Their hearts pounded in unison, not slowing, as Jessamy easily pulled his wrists free of Louis' grasp and embraced him, pulling him closer. This is my body, this is my blood. Louis pulled back, licking his lips. Jessamy's pale face was flushed rosy with heat, his lips almost bruised and stained with his own blood. His eyes slowly focused as he met Louis' gaze. "That was -" "I know," Jessamy finished for him. "I know." He silently kissed Louis' forehead, and Louis held him, trying to still the faint tremors running through his slender frame. They stood together like that for what seemed like an endless moment before Jessamy stepped back. "You should go back to Lestat now, I think." "Perhaps I should. I think I can talk to him, now." Jessamy kissed his cheek. "You'll find the words, love. You have them inside you, now." "I...know. It's your blood, of course, but there's something else, something..." Louis struggled to find an explanation. "Exactly." "But where will you go?" Louis clasped Jessamy's hand tightly in his own. "I mean, I will see you again...?" Jessamy grinned. "Of course you will. You're special to me, a part of me. You didn't really think this was some sort of sordid one-night stand? We holy entities don't go in with all that stuff." He pushed himself away from the tree he was still resting against, stretching. "Now, if you'll excuse me...I have to fly." A flash, and he was gone, and Louis stood alone in the trees, bereft. He looked up at the night sky, seeking solace in the stars, and his eye caught on a blackbird soaring upward, a mere dot in the sky. He almost missed it, but he could see that the bird had one white wing. He walked toward Rue Royale, lost in thought. The front door clicked shut quietly, a stark contrast to the crashing slam it had suffered earlier in the evening. Lestat looked up from where he was reading in a chair in the sitting room, a starkly hopeful look on his face. "Louis. You've...I mean I'm..." Louis stilled him with a touch, pressing a finger to Lestat's lips. "I know, Lestat. It doesn't matter." "I thought I would never see you again." He wrapped his arms around Louis, crushing him to his chest and burying his face in the soft black sweep of Louis' hair. "I was so worried..." "I'm sorry, Lestat." He kissed Lestat's forehead, his eyelids, his cheek, his lips. Lestat's eyes devoured him. "You've fed, I see." He tipped his face up in his hands, gazing at him in the light of a nearby lamp. "You look different, so...radiant." Louis smiled. ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
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