Sunday. May 8, 2005.
(True memory. Log edited with permission and cross-posted from Greater Realms. Provided as an insight for those curious about the above posted articles.)
Consciousness fades. The world slides in and out of focus. From one place to another. A dizzying effect that one should be well-adjusted to by now. This new place happens to be a tavern. The buzz of voices filters into the ears, circles around the eardrums, and begs to be clarified. A swirl of light and shadow, faces, images, objects, and people assault the eyes. Then the world is suddenly a blur of color, too much color, nothing but color. There were no faces, no expressions, no people. Only patterns and shapes of ever-shifting and always-blending color that resembled people, but only just in silhouette.
There is a voice, a voice that purrs with a lazy and seductive drawl, something foreign but well-adapted, practiced, sure of itself. The voice says something, asks a question, but it is unclear, lost in the buzz of other voices. Somehow it is registered, however. Vision shifts and changes and looks upon a hollow pattern, an empty pattern, a shape nearly devoid of color entirely.
"You know what it does to him?" he asks. Salvador's voice, the voice belonging to the memory, speaking as one's own. The accent is rich and fluid, not completely comfortable with the English language as of yet, a second language recently learned.
Nearby is Michael, his brother's lover. He hears the voice nearby as they argue over what has recently transpired. He tilts his focus to watch the ever-shifting blend of colors. Blue, green, red, but overall is pink. Always pink. "Amor, I love you, I know you and I don't want to fight on this point but I do not want to be here."
There is also Nemo, the aura consisting of so much black. An empathic aura, one that pulls in colors from all around it and mixes it into itself. "Mmhmm. You never know what inhaling oddly colored smoke might do to you. Right?" He is talking to Irina. There are so many people nearby, too many voices and patterns to calculate and keep track of all at once.
Concentration becomes dizzying. A conscious effort pushes away the colors, a thought, a blink, an easy slide out of and into focus. Then the world is black and white and gray again. There is clarity, perfect clarity and keen detail in sight. He looks back at the man who had spoken before, the man who had asked a question.
This man is tall, but not too tall, not as tall as his father, but certainly taller than himself. Even slouched against the porch rail as he is, one can determine that he is tall. He isn't thin or well-built. He isn't exactly spectacular in appearance, but there is a definite allure about him, something that just draws a person in the moment they look at him. In gray scale, one could hazard a guess that this man is dressed in black, the clothes are certainly dark enough to be black. The hair may also be black, dark and curly, a tangled mess that ends just above his shoulders. The eyes ... eyes ... he's always had trouble with eyes. Maybe they're brown. Maybe they're blue. He can never tell, but they definitely have a predatory look to them, intense.
He knew about this man when he first saw him. He knows what he is. The word is whispered in the air by many voices, hushed voices, voices that don't even belong to any of the people actually present. Vampire. Moments before he had witnessed his brother, Mesteno, drinking this man's blood. He had separated them. Now Mesteno and his lover, Michael, are arguing nearby.
This man fascinates him. He cannot take his eyes off of him. All of the other voices -- the arguments, the conversations, the whispers -- fade away. "Tell me," he says to the man. "What is it like for you?" It's something he wants to know. His own blood swirls in his veins, speaking to him, wondering as he does if it feels the same. Is there a thrill, a sadistic pleasure in it, as he feels, for a vampire to let another feed from him?
"Refreshing," says the man. "Sometimes being on the opposite end reminds you what it's like; keeps me thinking more like a human and less like a Ravnos." The vampire closes his eyes. The wound on his neck gradually closes. He watches it with a morbid sort of fascination. Never has he seen a wound heal so quickly. Amazing.
"Does your blood taste any different than human blood?" he asks.
"Yes," the man replies. "More potent, concentrated. Depending on who I've been feeding from, could be even more so. Vampiric and angelic blood are like a fine wine compared to human." The vampire licks the blood off of his own fingers.
Before he disliked this creature, this man. Before he would have been more inclined to kill him, as he has killed other vampires before. But he is learning, from his brother, from Angelin, from others, that not all vampires are bad. He remembers the thief who had tried to mug him and drink his blood at the same time. He remembers the spikes on his back impaling her and hearing her gurgle and scream the instant his blood trickled into his throat. He remembers ... a moment of absurd ecstasy, a brief moment, only a second of time, as he felt his own blood swirl around in her body, until she turned to ash. "Mine," he says, "will probably kill you."
"I noticed," the man says, and he grins.
The memory is still fresh in his mind, and he grins at the vampire as well. "There was one who tried to drink from me once. Maybe she was new and stupid, I don't know," he says, and he shrugs one shoulder. "She was quick, bit me from behind, and then she was dust."
"For the most part," says the vampire, "my blood doesn't kill. Fortunately." He closes his eyes again and brushes the remainder of the blood off of his now healed neck.
The wound is gone, no longer a fascination, as much of one as it had been. "I ... sometimes wish that mine didn't," he says. It is a reluctant admission. His blood is quite powerful, lethal, and he recalls his brother being a victim of it at one point. He recalls the memory of melting fingers. A touch of something, an emotion, something that could be mistaken for sorrow, flickers through him. Gone as quickly as it had risen. Mesteno had survived and had been healed. He looks over at his brother and Michael, watching them argue in a foreign language, watching them talk, but no longer listening.
"And sometimes I wish I were human: in the end, what happens, happens." The vampire leans away from the porch rail and moves toward the window to order a glass of Sangria. He steps back when the man moves. It is the first time he has moved his feet since this conversation began. How did it begin? Why did it begin?
This man is fascinating for reasons he cannot explain, reasons he is not aware of, not consciously, not yet. He watches him move. This man has an otherworldly grace. Maybe it's because he's a vampire, no longer human. Parts of him remain human, but not quite. He is imperfect, an imperfect being like himself.
"What are you?"
The question catches him off guard, it puzzles him. No one, not anyone he can remember or consciously think of, has ever asked him that sort of question before. Before, everyone has simply known. "I," he says, stammering, uncertain how to answer the inquiry. "Some have said the word half-breed." He decides upon that, and then decides to explain as best as he knows. "Padre is human, but ... Madre is fae."
"You get the blood effects from the fae side, I'm guessing?" The vampire turns to settle against the railing again, to watch him. Suddenly he finds himself marveling. In all the history and stories he has read or heard, vampires usually do not venture out in the daylight. This one must be powerful. This one is worthy of respect. Maybe that's why he had thought him to be dangerous. Certainly he is dangerous. They all are.
"S?," he answers, nodding just once, a short nod. "Her name ... well ... my uncle said it is a name she goes by, but not really her name. It is Faye."
"She Who Tends the Dead?" The man's eyebrows lift, clearly a sign of surprise, a revelation made. Evidenced in his next statement. "You're her son?"
He feels it in his gut, a twisting and wrenching sensation, a bitter rage wanting to be unleashed, a feeling, yes. Jealousy. The Serpent inside of him writhes and hisses, whispering encouraging thoughts, hinting and inspiring him to act. With a great deal of effort, he pushes it aside, silently tells it to be still, and he stands rigid, lifting his chin. "S?. Yes," he says, nearly hissing, feeling the sting of tears in the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill, almost. "You know her?" Everybody knows her, everybody but himself. He has never known her.
"Yes. I've been friends with Mesteno for a long time. I've seen her on and off for a few years, back when I used to go to SMI and Red Dragon. I didn't know she had a blood son, though. Huh." How can this man remain so calm? How can he drink his Sangria and not see...? See. Nobody ever sees, or feels, what he feels, what he thinks. Never. "Who's your father?"
This man is somehow soothing. Only for a brief instant did he feel the urge to lash out as he has with so many others. Slipping his hand into his pocket, he closes his fingers around the onyx jewel on the silver chain that his sister, Cass, had given him. A gift from his mother. He wraps the chain around his hand several times and drops to sit on the porch floor with a sigh. His answer is little more than a mumble. "Carmine Enrique Molinero-Gonzalez." A name, a man, he barely even knows.
"Carmine," the man says, repeating the name. He looks to be considering it, letting it sink into his mind. "Strong Spanish name."
Yes. A strong Spanish name for a strong Spanish man, a tall man, an imposing man, a muscular man. He thinks he looks nothing like his father, but others have said differently. He shrugs one shoulder. "He's from ... Barcelona," he says. "I think." He lifts his legs, knees bent, and he rests his arms against them. Bringing his hands together between his knees, he fiddles absently with the silver chain and the dangling onyx teardrop.
"I've been there. Beautiful place," says the man. Then he says something else, something that makes him feel more at ease. "Alegre ver no soy el ?nico espa?ol aqu?." He knew that faded accent was familiar, he had felt it, knew it, the moment he heard the man speak the first time. It is comforting to hear, to know, completely.
He smiles, he can feel it, just barely touch against his lips, and he tips down his chin to let his hair fall into his face. "Gracias," he says. "Es agradable o?r la lengua. Yo no supe ingl?s cuando llegu? primero aqu?."
"No sab?a ingl?s mismo. Mi padre me envi? aqu? cuando diecis?is," says the man. He sticks a cigarette between his lips and pauses to light it.
"Era ... trece. Um ... no," he says. There are memories, scattered memories, false memories. Months ago he had believed them as true. Now he knows the truth, and thirteen is a lie. That entire life is a lie, as he tells the man. "Trece eran una mentira. Una mentira que se puso en la cabeza." He glares at the silver chain, at the dark jewel, and he squeezes it viciously in his palm.
The man smiles. It is an almost sad smile. He barely sees it. But he feels the man reach and ruffle his hair, a strange and sudden affection that he did not expect from someone new, a stranger. Yet somehow it is comforting. "We Spaniards have a tough life," he says. Those words, too, are comforting.
"Hm." The sound he makes is nearly an amused breath of sound, and he reaches to swipe at the man's hand. At least the gesture, though he misses, has him loosening his grip on the pendant.
"How old are you?"
"One year and ... two months." Instantly he answers. He feels more at ease around this man, a vampire, than he ever has around anyone. He is not demanding. He is calm and asks questions, instead of making assumptions. Instead of insinuating, he is inquisitive. "Almost two months in," he says, pausing to count the days, "twelve days."
"Ah," says the man. "That must be the fae in you." He is completely unsurprised by the truth of his age, by the sound of it. Without hesitation, without fear, the vampire slumps down onto the porch floor to sit next to him.
He turns, shifts, twists to keep the man at least in his peripheral vision, and he nods. "Yes," he says. "That is what my uncle tells me. That I was born ... no. Made." No. Those aren't the right words, but he can't think of the correct terms. "Um ... to be the size of thirteen," he continues, stammering. Did that make sense? "But ... that was ... an accident I think." From what he remembers, from what he's been told, from what he knows...
"Probably a good accident."
"I was told ... Padre wanted a baby. And because I was not um ... because she was not able to ... make me a baby. They ... changed memories? Even mine." Strangely, he is confidant to speak to this man, to tell him things he has never told any other person. This is not generally a topic of conversation he is comfortable with. But here he is, spilling his guts, to a man whose name he doesn't even know.
"What are your memories like?" the man asks. "I'm sorry. I keep asking a million questions. You can ask me things too, if you wish."
It is comforting to hear those words, but it does not sway him to do so. "They're still ... a bit broken," he says. "Hard to tell which is the lie and which is truth sometimes." He can't think of any questions to ask the man himself, not yet. Though they are certainly there. When people ask him questions, direct questions, especially people who make him comfortable, he is more prone to simply answer. Which is strange. Usually he does not talk so very much. "I remember ... a church in Madrid. Where they found me." He closes his eyes to process the memories, broken and scattered and false as they are. "Padre Benedicto ... he thought the devil was inside me. But no ... he ... was not real. None of them were."
No. Those are false memories. Ghosts and shifting images. Ghosts? Why ghosts? Why does he think ghosts? The man breaks him out of his thoughts by asking a question, a jarring question. "There's no way Faye can remove the altered memories and straighten out your head?" He ashes his cigarette and breathes the smoke away, over his own shoulder.
"No," he says. "No ... that was ... R?o." But that name isn't right. He closes his eyes to process his memory, to search for the accurate name, lifting a hand to his forehead and touching his fingers there. "R?o. River. ... Revari." There. That's the one. "She is the one who changed memories. Who took them from others and made something new."
"She can't change them back?"
"I ... don't know." He lowers his hand away from his forehead and frowns. "And I don't know about my mother either. She ... will not see me." Deep inside he feels it, a hurt that will not surface, a scar that can't be seen or touched, a pain that no one has ever fully witnessed inside of him. He keeps his feelings secret, locked away, unclear even to himself. Even now he does not show them. Or does he?
"She won't?" The man sounds surprised. "Why not?"
"Don't know that either," he says. Once again he shrugs only one shoulder. Then he sighs and stretches out his legs. He tilts back to lean against the wall. Glancing aside at his brother, Mesteno, he tips up his chin to indicate him. "He said ... and so did Cass ... that it is not her way. To be ... part of my life I think?" It makes sense to him, but at the same time it is very confusing to him. He feels the two parts of his self battle with each other, trying to accept the facts as they are, but it is a difficult struggle, a tug of war. He looks again at the silver chain coiled around his hand, as if that holds the answers to everything. He thinks maybe it does.
"Faye is ... different. She's not like anyone I've ever met before. If it's not her way ... there's usually a good reason for it, hombre."
He is uncertain whether or not he should be comforted by those words, so he only nods. A memory passes, drifts by, and he decides to speak of it, a false memory, but one he remembers as clearly as if it were real. "The memory they gave to me ... was that my mother died. Giving birth to me in the church. I have memories of being small and growing up ... but ... I know they aren't real now."
"At least you know. What of your father? Do you see him at all?"
His father. He hardly sees his father, and when he does the man is far too busy with work, or with his lover, to spend much time with him. He hardly knows his father. "Not really. No. He is always working. And ... I haven't been home in two weeks?" He smirks, uncertain of the length of time. He hasn't been home in a long time. He has been with Dimitri.
"Ah," says the man. He finishes his cigarette and extinguishes the burning embers by smothering the tip against the floorboards. "Rhy'din is a place where every tortured soul finds some sense of comfort; it's the best place for me, and it probably will be for you too. Things will work out fine for you."
He wants to trust those words, find comfort in what this man says, to wrap himself up in that comfort and die happy. Die. Die. Does he want to die? No. Death is not what he wants, but it is relevant. Somehow death is relevant. Happiness, though. That is something he does want, something he has, in some ways. "I think you are right about that. I have friends. And now I have a brother and sister. And ... well ..." Dimitri. He has Dimitri. But he does not say that. He only smiles and scratches behind his ear, somewhat embarrassed by what he had almost said.
"You have a girl?" The man grins.
"Not ... exactly. No." He chuckles quietly. "I could if she would let me, but ... no." A girl. He could have Val, but she is frightened of him. She is uncertain. She is not Dimitri. "Someone else."
"Someone else," the man says, repeating with a vague grin.
"Mhm," he says, only nodding. This man isn't going to make him say it, is he?
"Go on."
He is. He actually feels his cheeks warm up when he smiles, and he does say it. He sighs and mumbles the name. "Dimitri. That's ... that's his name."
"Dimitri who? There are a few of them around here." The man actually smiles. He isn't surprised by that revelation? He isn't stunned and appalled?
"Um ... Dimitri," he says, pausing. Damn. It's a Greek name. He knows this. But it is a difficult name. "Keph-a-los?" He takes a moment to consider, to ponder it, to let it roll around in his head as an echo after being spoken aloud. Then he nods when it sinks in. Yes. That's it.
"Don't know him," says the man. "But hey. If he makes you happy, keep him."
"He does," he says, and again he chuckles quietly. "Yo lo sangro y ?l goza."
The man's smile, then, shows as the vampire he is, and he says, "I know exactly how you feel."
"Strange, though. I never thought ... well ... I never felt that way before. Mi padre ... he is with a man. And ... my fake memories had me not liking it at first," he says. Again he shrugs one shoulder. He remembers the church. He remembers how such a thing is taught to be wrong and sinful. He remembers learning of his father and Dan, how they are lovers as well as partners. He remembers Rei and Mica falling in love. He remembers Carolyn and Aya falling in love. And he considers, really, truly, for the first time, that it is not wrong, that it can be good and pure and right. "I guess ... I am more like him than I wanted to be, hm?" More like his father, in some ways he is.
"I thought it was wrong and vile up until my wife left me; I found males more of a comfort everyday," says the man.
"I have to be careful, though. Sometimes ... I stop thinking. All I smell is ... blood and ... sweat ... and ..." He knows the scent, but he has no word for it. Powerful and drowning, smothering, scent. A scent that fills his senses and takes control of his actions. There must be a word for it, but what is it?
"Why be careful?" the man asks, interrupting his thoughts.
"I ... am afraid," he says, opening his eyes slowly with a frown. He does not like to admit to having fear, of anything, but his dreams are all the same. Nightmares. "Afraid I might ... kill."
"Have you told him?"
"No. I ... don't know how to tell him. I'm not really sure how to explain it to anyone. Not long after my birthday ... I met my uncle. And ... that's when ... when I started wanting to kill more." Kill. To kill. Kill. The Shadow inside shifts, coils tighter around his spine. He can feel it, hear it, whispering to him.
"Tell him what you just told me," says the man. It sounds so simple. He palms his chin, taking a drink from a flask. Then he offers it. "Who's your uncle?"
He eyes the flask, feels his left brow twitch up to reveal the curiosity he feels. Cautiously he takes the flask from the vampire. He sniffs at it and knows what is inside instantly. Blood. Blood. Yes. Drink it. The Serpent slithers and whispers encouragement. He does not need that encouragement. A taste for blood is something he was born with. Secretly grateful, pleased, he took a drink. "He's ... not really my uncle," he says. "Related ... somehow. His name is Kymeera."
"Well, fuck." It dawns on him, hearing the man say that, that Kymeera is well known as well. Mesteno's reaction had been similar, as he remembers. The man grins. "I'd want to kill stuff too if I was related to Kymeera."
He chuckles, nearly choking on the blood, and some if it nearly slides out of his mouth. He catches it at the corner of his mouth with his tongue, and he grins as well.
"Kymeera's a pain in the ass," the man says.
"Everybody thinks that." He shrugs one shoulder. His opinion of his uncle was neither good nor bad. He neither hated him nor liked him. He had only met him once, though at times he sees him, representations of him, in his dreams. Nightmares. The blood is soothing, calming, relaxing, so he takes another drink from the flask.
"That's because Kymeera had a tendency to try and kill us." The man smirks and lights another cigarette.
He chuckles, amused by that assessment. "Kymeera doesn't want to kill. He only ... wants to scare. If he killed you, then he couldn't scare you. Is ..." What did his uncle call himself? He can't precisely remember the title. "Keeper of nightmares?" It is close, not precise, but close enough. He knows this somehow.
"Keeper of Nightmares. Man, I haven't seen him in a while. Or any of those creepy folks at the SMI."
Irina steps out onto the porch. She had gone inside earlier, and he hadn't noticed until now. "Hi," she says. "I'm going to head home, I think." She has a puzzled look. "Creepy folks?"
Again he chuckles. "Some people call me creepy," he says. Only when he looks at Irina, when he winks at her, does he realize that the crowd has gone. There is no buzz of voices all around. There is only him and this man, and Irina, leaving. "Hasta luego, amiga hermosa."
The man only salutes her.
"Hasta luego, amigo m?s guapo de todos," Irina says, and she ruffles his hair before quickly leaving, to her bike.
He snorts, and frowns, but it is not a genuine frown. He drinks more blood from the man's flask. "Ew," the man says. He barely hears him, but he does hear himself purr as he drains the flask of its contents.
"Someone's thirsty," says the man. That stirs him out of the reverie, the glorious taste of the blood.
"Mm." He licks his lips once the flask is empty. Turning it over, he gives it a shake to make certain, and he nearly pouts. He feels the Serpent, the Shadow, slither and coil its way up his spine.
"Yeah. You're definitely related to Faye."
Quietly he snickers, and he hands the flask back to the man. "That much I know is from her. I think ... Padre might ... I don't know. Maybe think something is wrong with me again, but after he found out about the lie he ... wasn't so sure I was loco anymore."
"You have a complicated life, kid." The man takes the flask back and tucks it into a pocket. "And a weird family."
"Tell me about it," he says. He chuckles and smirks, he can feel the smirk on his lips. He is amused and in perfect agreement about his family being weird. Strange. It certainly is strange. He feels an ache in his back with the Shadow moving, so he presses his shoulders into the wall to let his spines stretch and crackle.
"Can I see the spikes?" That question catches him by surprise. Not many people know about them. Is it that obvious that that's what they are? Then he remembers. He has seen this man before. When he burned his brother's fingers with his blood. The accident. This man had nearly been impaled by his spikes.
Though it is still a question that has him on edge. He eyes the man warily, uncertain. So far the conversation has been pleasant. This man, this vampire, may be dangerous, but he likes him. He decides this, suddenly, that he likes this man. So he shrugs and pushes away from the wall to slide out of his jacket. Tilting forward, he reaches back to pull up on his shirt carefully, to expose his spikes, and he provides a warning. "Be careful."
"Huh," the man says. He feels the vampire lean in for a closer look. He feels his spikes twitch and stretch outward, erect against his spine. "Poison tipped?" The man asks curiously.
"I don't really know," he says. It's true. He doesn't know. He's never tested them on anyone to be certain.
"You should find out."
"How?"
"Stab yourself. It's not like you can poison yourself, right?" He feels the man touch a finger against one of them, a light touch, a strange touch. Immediately he stiffens. It is not something he had expected. He feels every last spike stand rigid and erect, perpendicular against his spine. He hears the joints crackle and concentrates to will them back flat, to settle, and they do. He catches his breath, realizing he had lost it a moment there. That feeling, a sensation, it caused his nerves to tingle unexpectedly.
"No," he finally manages to say. "But I don't think I'd be able to tell either."
For some reason the man touches them again. He barely hears him speak. "There would be a film of another liquid over the cut when you squeeze the area around it."
The touch, a light touch, a strange touch, an arousing touch. Fire shoots through his veins. Electricity shoots through his nerves. A shiver wracks his spine, and every last spike on every vertebrae twitches reflexively. He clenches his teeth, incapable of thinking, of speaking. He draws a hissing breath through his teeth, and he holds it, then slowly he exhales, through his nose.
Why? For a brief second that question arises when the man decides to run his finger down the entire length of his spine, along every last spike, from top to bottom. He feels himself falling and lets go of his shirt, planting his palms flat on the porch floor to keep himself from falling over completely. He's had his spikes pulled, twisted, impaled in people and things, but never have they been touched this way. Arousing. Erotic. Stimulating. Debilitating!
"Wow," says the man, and he feels a finger stroke along the underside of one spike, cautiously avoiding the serrated edge.
"Dios!" he hisses. His fingernails dig into the wood floor of the porch and scrape back, pulling up tendrils of wood. He can barely feel the curls of wood under his nails. What he feels most of all is the sensation, the same sensation, the exhilaration, as if he were inside Dimitri. But he's not. This is different. Different, but the very same reaction as if he were having sex. The same end result. His eyes close and he shivers, and he purrs.
"That's interesting," the man says. He touches them carefully a little longer, and then all of that prickly sensation falls away with his hand.
His breath had been lost, caught, lost again, and caught again, several times. When the sensation ends, when the man stops touching them, his spikes, he loses all his strength and falls onto his side. He feels outside of himself. Beyond himself. Numb.
The man lays down next to him. He hears the smile in the voice. "Well now. That wasn't so bad, was it?"
"No...?" It had felt good. Too good. Too good to admit. Yet his voice and even his thoughts are riddled with uncertainty.
"You poor bastard," says the man, sighing. "Need a ride somewhere?"
"No." Of that he is certain.
"Suit yourself, kid." The man stands and stretches. "I'm heading out. You ever want to talk, I'm usually around these parts."
"Ok." It's all he can think to say immediately. What else should he say? After what just happened... "Gracias." Yes. He thanks him. Not for that. No. But for talking to him. Certainly, for that, he is grateful. No one has ever spent that much time simply talking to him before. At least not about anything important.
"No worries. Ah ... my name's Sin by the way. I don't believe we were introduced." He can hear the grin in the man's voice as he walks toward the stairs.
Sin. Fitting name? Yes. A fitting name. "Sin," he says, repeating the name, placing it in his memory, his own memory, a true memory...
