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More fic dump.
On lovers and vampires, and loss.
They had gathered in a pleasant, if ramshackle little summerhouse at the far end of Pete's extensive property. Andy wasn't sure Pete even knew it was his; he'd certainly never mentioned it, and it was tucked back amongst the trees at the far end of the land that surrounded the house, still in fine condition, although pretty neglected. Being a bright early autumn evening, still warm despite the lateness of the year, the three of them had decided to use the overgrown porch and watch the sun set; always beautiful in this part of the world, the oranges and reds of the display promised more good weather for several days.
“Are we safe here?” asked Andy, a little nervously.
Yoz snorted cheerfully. “Define your usage of the word safe. From meteorite strikes? No. From attacks by vampires? Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“She's unlikely to strike us here; not until she knows exactly what we're up to, anyway.”
“And what are we up to?” asked Alan quietly, his light lilt carrying through the gathering gloom.
“We need to get Pete to come with me, to Glastonbury. If I can get him across to Avalon -”
“How are we supposed to do that?” protested Andy. “You've seen him. If you even try and suggest anything to him something…horrible…happens to him, and he just switches off. Ian and Vic don't even hear you half the time.”
“I know,” the Mage replied patiently, watching the last rays of the sun slide behind the hills, “we need to block her influence long enough for me to put some sort of shielding in place to prevent her taking him back. It'll only work for a short time, but it only needs to.”
“I sense another 'but' coming,” snorted Alan.
“But…I can't do them both at the same time.”
“So we need someone to do the block while you install the shield,” sighed Andy miserably, “which means we're stuffed.”
“Possibly not,” said a new voice, from the darkness. Yoz shot to her feet, sending her chair crashing to the ground behind her.
“Inside! Now!”
Alan and Andy scrambled to get into the summerhouse as Yoz covered them, lifting her hands to call into being a buzzing ball of energy that she could use to burn anyone or anything that threatened them. All she knew so far was that the voice belonged to a vampire; she did have a nasty suspicion exactly which one, but wasn't assuming anything until she got to see him. She turned in place, eyes scanning the dark undergrowth in the search for the intruder.
“I'm no threat to you.”
“Really,” she snapped, lofting the ball of light to illuminate the porch, and creating another one in case she needed it, “come into the light. Prove it.”
Without a moment's hesitation, he did so. “See?” said Stephen, quietly.
“Fuck,” growled Yoz, closing her hands and extinguishing the weapon she'd called forth, “just when I think life can't get any shittier, you show up.”
“I can help you.”
“And you would want to why, exactly?”
“Two reasons,” said the sad faced young man before her, “one, I have no wish to share my mistress' favours. And two…we were in love, once. Remember? I feel that I…owe you one.”
“Oh my. That's the one from the -”
“Yes Andy, it is. You two can come out now. He's no danger to you.”
“You're right, I'm not.”
“OK, what's your offer? Make it and get out. Away. Whatever.” Yoz folded her arms and looked fierce. The young man walked up very close to her; he wasn't much taller than she, and they were physically well matched. Only his youth marked them apart; Alan had to remind himself that when the vampire had been changed, the two of them had been the same age.
“Can we talk?”
“No.”
“Yoz,” said Andy quietly.
“I said no! You want to say anything, Chapman, you say it here. In front of these witnesses.”
“Yolanda…” he breathed, rubbing one hand across his eyes wearily.
She, on the other hand, was practically vibrating with fury. “What?”
He seemed to give up. “I'll block her. I can do it without her realising it's me; then you put the shielding in place. Then you can take him to Avalon, get him out of her influence.”
“How did you know -”
“Because he isn't stupid,” Yoz interrupted Alan, her ferocious scowl at odds with the softness of her voice, “and he knows I've been there before. Right, Chap?”
“Right,” he agreed. He moved closer to his old lover, and extended his hands to her; she took a step back and curled her lip in disgust at the thought of touching his cold, dead skin.
Alan moved forward and looped an arm around her shoulders; if he was surprised to feel her shivering - or perhaps trembling would be a better word - he showed no evidence of it on his face and simply stared down the shorter vampire. Indigo eyes met dark brown, and it wasn't long before Steve growled under his breath and looked away. Alan turned his face into Yoz' dark hair. “You OK?” he murmured, gently.
She angled her head to smile at him. “No but…I'll live.”
“I thought you were with Pete,” snapped a voice.
“I belong to no-one,” she told her ex-lover calmly, feeling much better with Alan's warm form touching her own. The heat from his body leached into her coldness at hip and shoulder, soothing away the iciness at her centre. He gave her the slightest squeeze of support, and she felt even better when Andy placed his hand on her other shoulder, patting her gently to let her know that he was there, too.
“Do you all share each other's women?” asked the vampire, curling one lip to display a single gleaming fang.
“Enough, Stephen.”
He hissed, but dropped his gaze from hers. “Is tomorrow night acceptable to you?” he snapped suddenly, still not meeting her gaze.
“We'll be waiting behind the house for you after dark.”
“Fine.” And he was gone.
“Will you chaps be alright to get back to the house?” she said quietly, the very slightest catch in her voice.
“Yeah, but -”
“I'll be alright, Andy. I just...I just need to sit and think for a bit, that's all. Get some memories straight.”
“Do it in the house,” urged Alan, worried, “in your room. You're safe there, aren't you?”
“I am, but…” she shook her head, “I feel the need to look at the sea for a bit. I'll see you in the morning, OK?”
“But -”
“Too late, mate,” sighed Andy, looking around himself exaggeratedly, “she's already
gone.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Yep.”
Steve found her sitting beneath a rowan tree near the edge of the cliff, watching the restless sea pace back and forth across the sand in the relentless marathon of the tides. Despite the bite of the night air, she still wore the clothing she'd had on at the summerhouse; her old faithful tasselled jacket hanging open to show the thin dark shirt, pressing then lifting against her skin as the breeze tugged and pushed at it playfully, her favourite filthy leather jeans and heavy boots. The light offshore breeze lifted and caressed her dark hair, allowing the moonlight to plait silver fingers of reflection within it even as it swirled tendrils of the silky stuff around her head.
He sat down beside her on the short turf, and watched the end of her cigarette brighten then ebb as she drew from it, exhaling the pearly blue smoke to whip away on the fresh breeze.
“Thought I'd find you here.” His voice was soft, and faintly regretful.
“Under a rowan. Thought I'd keep your missus off, see?”
“It wouldn't work. She is…more powerful than that.”
Yoz gave a short, humourless bark of laughter. “I know that. Jesus, I see she took your sense of humour as well.”
There was a strained silence for a moment, then the young man let out a soft snort of amusement and shook his head. “Yeah, I suppose she has. Haven't had much to laugh about since -” He broke off suddenly.
“Since you died, Steve.” Yoz' voice was quiet. “That's the phrase you were looking for, wasn't it?”
“I suppose it was, yeah.”
The silence fell again. Stephen looked down at the ground, tugging at the turf and smelling the fragrance of the bruised plants as he did so. With his enhanced senses he could feel the cellular structure of each blade of grass, hear the very worms tunnelling through the sandy soil or focus on the sleepy gulls muttering to their unhatched chicks, secure within the safety of the warm soft breast feathers and ringed by the nest. Had he so chosen, he could have focused on the chucklings of the porpoises in the bay, joined the tireless swifts in their aerial doze or been back in the bars of the city in a heartbeat; but he would cheerfully have traded it all in for one more chance -
“Regrets?” Yoz' voice was harsh with emotion.
Steve winced. She always had been able to follow his train of thought without much trouble, even before she could read minds. He knew she couldn't currently read his; his blocks were certainly good enough to let him know if she tried, and she wasn't. Nope, this was good old Yoz, just being damn clever and knowing and stuff. Just like always.
“You know I have.”
“And so you should,” she sighed, a little more softly, flicking her cigarette end over the cliff into the sea, following its graceful arc with her eyes.
“Yoz,” he said, hoping she would look at him.
She continued to direct her gaze out to sea.
“Yoz.”
Finally she turned to look at him, mismatched eyes glittering in the darkness. Her face showed the terrible strain she was under, just being here with him; her lips were skinned back from her teeth in an almost feral expression of pain.
“Why, Stephen? I know I was young, but what did she have that made you so willing to give up everything we had?” She struggled to take a deep breath, to calm herself; he watched the woman who had been everything to him catch her runaway emotions and wrestle them back into their cage. By the time she began to speak once more, there was no sign of the desperation that had marred her features so recently.
“You never did tell me,” she said quietly.
“I was…” he gave a short bark of laughter and shook his long, curly hair back from his brow, “believe it or not, I was afraid to die. So when she offered me the chance to live forever…well…”
“You couldn't say no.”
“Exactly.”
“I'm still alive, though.”
“And how many times have you nearly not been?” and now it was his turn to begin to feel the strain. “How often have you cheated death by the skin of your teeth?”
“Poetic. You never used to be.”
“Yeah. Well. How often?”
“A few times.”
“A lot. And if you don't back off now you really will die. She's serious about this, Yoz; she'll cheerfully kill you to get at him. She wants him and the guitarist, the blond one she's so close to taking already; she'll take them all if she has to. Slaughter her way through anyone who tries to stop her -”
“Which is exactly why I have to stop her. By the Goddess, when did you get so stupid, Chapman?”
Baring his teeth at her, he let his fangs show, eyes glow, and shape subtly change; growling furiously, he shifted to his knees and thrust what had become a muzzle towards her.
“You forget what you're talking to!” he snarled furiously, feeling the pull of her blood, her life pulsing hotly a scant few feet from him. Turning to look at him, he was somewhat startled to see no trace of fear in the odd eyes; instead, she gave a small, sad smile and reached out a hand to touch his face gently.
“No, love. I never forget.” She stroked a warm hand down the side of his cold face, trailing her fingers under his chin then finally resting her palm on his cheek. “Never.”
Lowering his shifting face in shame, he shuffled closer to her and laid his head in her lap. Expecting to receive nothing but a deathblow he was humbled to feel, a moment later, gentle fingers combing through his hair, smoothing it down his back and patting it into place with a familiar, loving touch.
“Oh love,” she sighed, so softly it could have been the gentle breeze, not a human voice, “where did we go wrong?”
Weeping bloody tears of pain and regret, he curled tighter into the very human warmth of her lap. She wrapped her strong arms around him and lowered her face to his hair; inhaling the well remembered, almost spicy scent of him, she too finally lost her iron control and allowed warm tears to fall.
They had gathered in a pleasant, if ramshackle little summerhouse at the far end of Pete's extensive property. Andy wasn't sure Pete even knew it was his; he'd certainly never mentioned it, and it was tucked back amongst the trees at the far end of the land that surrounded the house, still in fine condition, although pretty neglected. Being a bright early autumn evening, still warm despite the lateness of the year, the three of them had decided to use the overgrown porch and watch the sun set; always beautiful in this part of the world, the oranges and reds of the display promised more good weather for several days.
“Are we safe here?” asked Andy, a little nervously.
Yoz snorted cheerfully. “Define your usage of the word safe. From meteorite strikes? No. From attacks by vampires? Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“She's unlikely to strike us here; not until she knows exactly what we're up to, anyway.”
“And what are we up to?” asked Alan quietly, his light lilt carrying through the gathering gloom.
“We need to get Pete to come with me, to Glastonbury. If I can get him across to Avalon -”
“How are we supposed to do that?” protested Andy. “You've seen him. If you even try and suggest anything to him something…horrible…happens to him, and he just switches off. Ian and Vic don't even hear you half the time.”
“I know,” the Mage replied patiently, watching the last rays of the sun slide behind the hills, “we need to block her influence long enough for me to put some sort of shielding in place to prevent her taking him back. It'll only work for a short time, but it only needs to.”
“I sense another 'but' coming,” snorted Alan.
“But…I can't do them both at the same time.”
“So we need someone to do the block while you install the shield,” sighed Andy miserably, “which means we're stuffed.”
“Possibly not,” said a new voice, from the darkness. Yoz shot to her feet, sending her chair crashing to the ground behind her.
“Inside! Now!”
Alan and Andy scrambled to get into the summerhouse as Yoz covered them, lifting her hands to call into being a buzzing ball of energy that she could use to burn anyone or anything that threatened them. All she knew so far was that the voice belonged to a vampire; she did have a nasty suspicion exactly which one, but wasn't assuming anything until she got to see him. She turned in place, eyes scanning the dark undergrowth in the search for the intruder.
“I'm no threat to you.”
“Really,” she snapped, lofting the ball of light to illuminate the porch, and creating another one in case she needed it, “come into the light. Prove it.”
Without a moment's hesitation, he did so. “See?” said Stephen, quietly.
“Fuck,” growled Yoz, closing her hands and extinguishing the weapon she'd called forth, “just when I think life can't get any shittier, you show up.”
“I can help you.”
“And you would want to why, exactly?”
“Two reasons,” said the sad faced young man before her, “one, I have no wish to share my mistress' favours. And two…we were in love, once. Remember? I feel that I…owe you one.”
“Oh my. That's the one from the -”
“Yes Andy, it is. You two can come out now. He's no danger to you.”
“You're right, I'm not.”
“OK, what's your offer? Make it and get out. Away. Whatever.” Yoz folded her arms and looked fierce. The young man walked up very close to her; he wasn't much taller than she, and they were physically well matched. Only his youth marked them apart; Alan had to remind himself that when the vampire had been changed, the two of them had been the same age.
“Can we talk?”
“No.”
“Yoz,” said Andy quietly.
“I said no! You want to say anything, Chapman, you say it here. In front of these witnesses.”
“Yolanda…” he breathed, rubbing one hand across his eyes wearily.
She, on the other hand, was practically vibrating with fury. “What?”
He seemed to give up. “I'll block her. I can do it without her realising it's me; then you put the shielding in place. Then you can take him to Avalon, get him out of her influence.”
“How did you know -”
“Because he isn't stupid,” Yoz interrupted Alan, her ferocious scowl at odds with the softness of her voice, “and he knows I've been there before. Right, Chap?”
“Right,” he agreed. He moved closer to his old lover, and extended his hands to her; she took a step back and curled her lip in disgust at the thought of touching his cold, dead skin.
Alan moved forward and looped an arm around her shoulders; if he was surprised to feel her shivering - or perhaps trembling would be a better word - he showed no evidence of it on his face and simply stared down the shorter vampire. Indigo eyes met dark brown, and it wasn't long before Steve growled under his breath and looked away. Alan turned his face into Yoz' dark hair. “You OK?” he murmured, gently.
She angled her head to smile at him. “No but…I'll live.”
“I thought you were with Pete,” snapped a voice.
“I belong to no-one,” she told her ex-lover calmly, feeling much better with Alan's warm form touching her own. The heat from his body leached into her coldness at hip and shoulder, soothing away the iciness at her centre. He gave her the slightest squeeze of support, and she felt even better when Andy placed his hand on her other shoulder, patting her gently to let her know that he was there, too.
“Do you all share each other's women?” asked the vampire, curling one lip to display a single gleaming fang.
“Enough, Stephen.”
He hissed, but dropped his gaze from hers. “Is tomorrow night acceptable to you?” he snapped suddenly, still not meeting her gaze.
“We'll be waiting behind the house for you after dark.”
“Fine.” And he was gone.
“Will you chaps be alright to get back to the house?” she said quietly, the very slightest catch in her voice.
“Yeah, but -”
“I'll be alright, Andy. I just...I just need to sit and think for a bit, that's all. Get some memories straight.”
“Do it in the house,” urged Alan, worried, “in your room. You're safe there, aren't you?”
“I am, but…” she shook her head, “I feel the need to look at the sea for a bit. I'll see you in the morning, OK?”
“But -”
“Too late, mate,” sighed Andy, looking around himself exaggeratedly, “she's already
gone.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Yep.”
Steve found her sitting beneath a rowan tree near the edge of the cliff, watching the restless sea pace back and forth across the sand in the relentless marathon of the tides. Despite the bite of the night air, she still wore the clothing she'd had on at the summerhouse; her old faithful tasselled jacket hanging open to show the thin dark shirt, pressing then lifting against her skin as the breeze tugged and pushed at it playfully, her favourite filthy leather jeans and heavy boots. The light offshore breeze lifted and caressed her dark hair, allowing the moonlight to plait silver fingers of reflection within it even as it swirled tendrils of the silky stuff around her head.
He sat down beside her on the short turf, and watched the end of her cigarette brighten then ebb as she drew from it, exhaling the pearly blue smoke to whip away on the fresh breeze.
“Thought I'd find you here.” His voice was soft, and faintly regretful.
“Under a rowan. Thought I'd keep your missus off, see?”
“It wouldn't work. She is…more powerful than that.”
Yoz gave a short, humourless bark of laughter. “I know that. Jesus, I see she took your sense of humour as well.”
There was a strained silence for a moment, then the young man let out a soft snort of amusement and shook his head. “Yeah, I suppose she has. Haven't had much to laugh about since -” He broke off suddenly.
“Since you died, Steve.” Yoz' voice was quiet. “That's the phrase you were looking for, wasn't it?”
“I suppose it was, yeah.”
The silence fell again. Stephen looked down at the ground, tugging at the turf and smelling the fragrance of the bruised plants as he did so. With his enhanced senses he could feel the cellular structure of each blade of grass, hear the very worms tunnelling through the sandy soil or focus on the sleepy gulls muttering to their unhatched chicks, secure within the safety of the warm soft breast feathers and ringed by the nest. Had he so chosen, he could have focused on the chucklings of the porpoises in the bay, joined the tireless swifts in their aerial doze or been back in the bars of the city in a heartbeat; but he would cheerfully have traded it all in for one more chance -
“Regrets?” Yoz' voice was harsh with emotion.
Steve winced. She always had been able to follow his train of thought without much trouble, even before she could read minds. He knew she couldn't currently read his; his blocks were certainly good enough to let him know if she tried, and she wasn't. Nope, this was good old Yoz, just being damn clever and knowing and stuff. Just like always.
“You know I have.”
“And so you should,” she sighed, a little more softly, flicking her cigarette end over the cliff into the sea, following its graceful arc with her eyes.
“Yoz,” he said, hoping she would look at him.
She continued to direct her gaze out to sea.
“Yoz.”
Finally she turned to look at him, mismatched eyes glittering in the darkness. Her face showed the terrible strain she was under, just being here with him; her lips were skinned back from her teeth in an almost feral expression of pain.
“Why, Stephen? I know I was young, but what did she have that made you so willing to give up everything we had?” She struggled to take a deep breath, to calm herself; he watched the woman who had been everything to him catch her runaway emotions and wrestle them back into their cage. By the time she began to speak once more, there was no sign of the desperation that had marred her features so recently.
“You never did tell me,” she said quietly.
“I was…” he gave a short bark of laughter and shook his long, curly hair back from his brow, “believe it or not, I was afraid to die. So when she offered me the chance to live forever…well…”
“You couldn't say no.”
“Exactly.”
“I'm still alive, though.”
“And how many times have you nearly not been?” and now it was his turn to begin to feel the strain. “How often have you cheated death by the skin of your teeth?”
“Poetic. You never used to be.”
“Yeah. Well. How often?”
“A few times.”
“A lot. And if you don't back off now you really will die. She's serious about this, Yoz; she'll cheerfully kill you to get at him. She wants him and the guitarist, the blond one she's so close to taking already; she'll take them all if she has to. Slaughter her way through anyone who tries to stop her -”
“Which is exactly why I have to stop her. By the Goddess, when did you get so stupid, Chapman?”
Baring his teeth at her, he let his fangs show, eyes glow, and shape subtly change; growling furiously, he shifted to his knees and thrust what had become a muzzle towards her.
“You forget what you're talking to!” he snarled furiously, feeling the pull of her blood, her life pulsing hotly a scant few feet from him. Turning to look at him, he was somewhat startled to see no trace of fear in the odd eyes; instead, she gave a small, sad smile and reached out a hand to touch his face gently.
“No, love. I never forget.” She stroked a warm hand down the side of his cold face, trailing her fingers under his chin then finally resting her palm on his cheek. “Never.”
Lowering his shifting face in shame, he shuffled closer to her and laid his head in her lap. Expecting to receive nothing but a deathblow he was humbled to feel, a moment later, gentle fingers combing through his hair, smoothing it down his back and patting it into place with a familiar, loving touch.
“Oh love,” she sighed, so softly it could have been the gentle breeze, not a human voice, “where did we go wrong?”
Weeping bloody tears of pain and regret, he curled tighter into the very human warmth of her lap. She wrapped her strong arms around him and lowered her face to his hair; inhaling the well remembered, almost spicy scent of him, she too finally lost her iron control and allowed warm tears to fall.