1:46am: David and Enigma, fiction. (I miss David. --sigh--)
He put down the receiver quietly and stood there for a moment in silence, staring at the phone. “What is it?” his younger-looking companion asked, eying him critically. Enigma glanced up from the phone and turned his attention to David.
“It’s Mum. She’s . . . she has received discouraging news from the doctor,” he murmured, staring back at the phone as if he could will it to jump up and repudiate the conversation he had just had with his brother. He sighed heavily, his face otherwise stony. David did not move, but merely stood there in the Great Hall where he had paused when he had come in to find his fledgling engaged in the subdued conversation. With some effort, Enigma turned from the phone and walked to a sofa, where he sat resignedly and closed his eyes.
“You look tired,” David murmured, following him with his gaze, still standing where he had been.
Enigma said nothing for a moment, then answered without opening his eyes. “Yes. I suppose I am.” He leaned forward, burying his hands in his hair. “I . . . don’t know how to let her go.”
At this, David approached him and sat quietly beside him, raising a tentative hand and placing it on his back. Enigma shuddered lightly, but then seemed to relax beneath his touch. The two vampires sat there in silence for some minutes with no movement other than their steady breathing and David’s thumb caressing Enigma between his shoulder blades. At length, David murmured, “Come to bed with me.” Enigma said nothing, but he became as still as a statue, having left off the mortal habit of breathing air his lungs no longer needed. “Let me hold you tonight,” David added quietly.
Again, Enigma said nothing for several long moments. When he spoke, his voice was steady but deadly quiet. “Why, David?” He paused a beat. “Why do you want to hold me?”
This time, it was David who waited to speak, measuring his words carefully before he spoke in an equally steady and quiet voice, “Because you need me tonight.”
Enigma snorted, his head still in his hands. Almost below mortal hearing, he retorted, “I need you every night.”
“No . . . you don’t,” David responded, then sighed, his thumb still caressing Enigma’s back tenderly. “But I speak truthfully, not accusingly, my love,” he added as his fledgling’s shoulders sagged slightly. “I have withheld myself from you so that you no longer need me every night. I . . . .” Here, he paused, again trying to find the correct words. “I am not . . . the companion I wish I could be, Enigma. I know that.” David smiled bitterly, though Enigma was still staring at the floor between his own feet. “I don’t want you to need me every night because I cannot be here every night for you. And I cannot bear the thought that . . . that you are suffering because of me.”
Enigma took in the breath to sigh audibly, then resumed breathing. However, he said nothing in response. Nor did he move from his defeated posture. Several moments passed before David again murmured, “Come to bed with me tonight. Let me hold you, darling.” “Please,” he added quietly after there was no response.
Although Enigma did not give his assent, either verbally or non-verbally, he rose when David rose, pulling on his arm to urge him to stand. David slid his arm around Enigma’s waist, leading him up the front stairs which neither used very often any more. David, when he was home, spent his repose in the back bedroom he had always claimed as his own. Enigma slept either in the basement or the attic, depending upon his mood and where he found himself when dawn approached. Again, this was if he was home at all. As often as not, he found himself spending his daylight hours elsewhere: sometimes beneath the raw earth, sometimes in a luxury hotel.
The staircase, however, was used frequently by the mortal residents, and now owners, of the house. Though both vampires had urged the lads to take the master bedroom with the massive bathroom, Brent and Kyle had chosen to remain in the original bedroom they had occupied from their initial nights in the house. Remy, whose room had been designed specifically with his Buddist tendencies in mind, had no desire whatsoever for any other bedroom in the house. Thus, the mortal residents stayed in the front bedrooms of the splendidly refurbished old house, and utilized the front staircase.
Tonight, however, the two vampires ascended it with mortal steps, David drawing Enigma up the stairs and down the hall, toward the bedroom they had once called their own. When David opened the door, the room had a musty odor about it, though there was not a trace of dust that would indicate any disuse. Indeed, it seemed as though the bed linens had been freshly laundered; and there was wood stacked in the immaculate hearth, waiting to be transformed into a friendly, cheery fire. However, the New Orleans March night was far too warm to merit a fire, and Enigma merely stared blankly from the bed to the hearth and back again.
After closing the door, David came to Enigma and began to unbutton the white cotton shirt, the sleeves of which had been rolled up to just below the elbows. Enigma stared mutely at the bed, allowing David to undress him. When David had slid his trousers down for Enigma to step out of them, he murmured in a flat voice, “I . . . I don’t usually undress any more, David.”
“No,” David answered, squatting to remove Enigma’s shoes and socks, then sending all of the clothing to a nearby valet, “but you’re undressing tonight.” David rose and Enigma turned his eyes on him for the first time that evening since he had gotten off the phone. David met his gaze as David began unbuttoning his own shirt. Enigma said nothing, his expression betraying nothing, though he continued to stare into David’s dark eyes while David shed his clothing. When he sent his own clothing to the other valet, he took Enigma’s hand and drew him to the bed, pulling down the covers with his free hand. “Now . . . crawl into bed like a good lad, hmm?”
Enigma sighed heavily, but obeyed, tearing his eyes from David’s at last, and pulling back the covers to slide in beneath them. David rounded the bed and did the same, moving close to Enigma and wrapping his arms around the long, skinny frame of his fledgling, kissing the silky vampire hair. At first, Enigma did not respond. He just lay there, contemplating the feel of his maker’s flesh once again against his own. But as David continued to kiss and stroke his hair, throwing a leg possessively across his thighs, Enigma turned toward him and reached out his arms to embrace David with another deep sigh, closing his eyes.
“I love you, David,” Enigma murmured resignedly, kissing sweetly at David’s collarbone, his long fingertips taking in the contours of David’s spine and the musculature of his back.
“And I love you, my precious Enigma,” David responded, his lips pressed against Enigma’s forehead. “Though I understand if you find that hard to believe.” David continued to brush his lips repeatedly over Enigma’s forehead and hair, his limbs firmly, lovingly enveloping the younger vampire.
Enigma sighed yet again, answering softly against David’s flesh, “No . . . I believe you, David.” Another sigh. “I know that you love me.”
They continued the quiet kissing and mutual caressing until mortal sleep overcame Enigma, who rested peacefully in David’s arms. David spent the remainder of the night merely holding his companion, his fledgling, his son, listening to the slow, steady breathing and thrum of his vampiric heartbeat. When dawn approached, David heard the back part of the house shuttering itself against the daylight. Then, within a quarter of an hour, he felt the leaden daysleep coming over him, overcoming him.
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calicedesang
