ashwynne
🌧 pluviophile 🌧 art: peritwinkle
Elias Laertes Brandt
J u d a s
h e a l t h | b a r
Though the vampire was not intimately acquainted with all the twists and turns of the French Quarter alleyways, he knew the area well enough that he remained uncertain of his bearings for only a very brief time before he was able to reorient himself.
Booted feet all but dragged over the pavement as he began to make the arduous journey to his house on Dauphine street. With the adrenaline dying down, pain was bubbling up in its place. He hardly dared to swallow, taking only shallow breaths through his nose, desperate to contain what little of the Mephisto’s blood might remain on his tongue even through the pain.
With care, Elias pressed a hand over the wound in his neck. Every drop of his own blood had become infinitely more precious in the wake of his attempt to take Fletcher. It now contained the very essence of the sun, a microcosm of the elixir he had hungered for throughout the centuries. To waste a single drop would be undeniable blasphemy.
His pace slowed, tension easing a little, thoughts beginning to drift as home drew ever nearer and the streets became familiar enough that he did not need to pay such diligent attention to direction. Idly, the thumb at his neck began to stroke over the wound. All that separated blood and viscera from the storm-riddled air was a thin membrane his immortal body and its preternatural healing had begun to form, but the edges still ran ragged, dried blood tacky beneath his touch and fresh blood still oozing from between his callused fingers despite his best efforts to staunch the flow.
He pressed a little harder against the film-like skin and a bolt of pain shot through him, bringing with it a jolt of crystalline memory: dilated, frightened, umber eyes flecked with deeper, richer, browns that were nearly black… peering up at him in a way that was-- A shudder rippled from the back of his skull all the way down to pool hot in his low abdomen. His thumb pressed harder, feet slowing, lurching.
All over again he could feel the cool of Fletcher’s lean body pressed against his own, the soaked chestnut curls his fingers had coiled into, the dissonant ticking of their clockwork hearts, and the heady scent of blood unlike anything he had ever tasted before. A hissed gasp ended in a breathy moan: Elias could smell him, recalled in perfect clarity through the pain.
Fingers pressed harder against the wound, heedless of the tearing of the thin veil of skin, half panting as he all but stumbled--mad--against the door of his house. Ah, he could feel it again, spreading hot over his tongue… the roughness of Jack’s cheek, the ridges and pits of his wound, the way his aromatic, godly, blood had filled him from even that small taste...
A heated groan tore itself from deep in his belly, electric tingles playing over every nerve… and that was how Martin found him.
The door to his elegant townhouse opened to reveal his bespectacled manservant; ash brown hair perfectly coiffed back, cool silver-blue eyes appraising and seemingly unsurprised to see him in such a state.
“...What have you gotten yourself into this time?” the words were spoken in a dry tone but the hand that stretched out to bat Elias’ hand away from his neck was surprisingly gentle, and at the sight of the wound there came a sharp gasp, a low anxious whisper of “Elias…!”
The blond’s eyes whipped upwards to meet him--feral hunger visible clearly in the darkened viridescent irises, “It will heal,” he all but hissed.
Despite himself, the vampire found his gaze continuing to lick its way up and down the other man, his breathing growing pitched and ragged. Hunger… had a way of spreading, of creating other appetites. A burning need that screamed to be fulfilled. He had been so close. So fucking close! If that damnable Seiko hadn’t been there. If the scent of Fletcher’s blood hadn’t driven sense from his mind. If he had only-- The vampire clenched his teeth together, hard enough that he felt his jaw begin to crack.
The brunet should have been secreted away with him right now. His tongue should have been dragging over the flesh of his neck. Hand delicately wrapped around his throat. Teeth sinking into the hot fount of blood within his jugular. Sunlight exploding in his veins. Chestnut curls wrapped around his fingers. Every inch of Jack’s body being his to sample, to possess, night after night, moment after moment, all the way until they returned to Eden.
The sound that strangled its way out of his throat this time was more manic and less controlled… somewhere between a snarl and a moan.
Desperate for distraction from these torturous thoughts, he found the strength to grab Martin by a fistful of his shirt, slamming them both backwards past the doorway and into the nearest wall. His neck lolled, straining what structural integrity remained to it. This would normally have been enough to make him reconsider, but the aching need he felt was too much.
“You need to be careful. Why don't you let me--” but the lubricious offer about to be afforded him by Martin fell on deaf ears. Hissing, Elias leaned in, silencing him as he claimed his lips.
Teeth skated restlessly over the tender flesh, pressing in, pulling the bottom lip back in an inviting tug before he took him more deeply with a low growl, tongue slipping between his teeth to stroke with unhurried sensuality over the brunet’s own tongue.
Helpless within the spell that Elias was weaving, Martin’s breath stuttered, his hands finding shaky purchase around the blond’s shoulders; one of them coming up to press against the wound in his neck… as though to hold him together.
But Martin's mouth was not enough, not what the vampire craved, the taste of him failing to send the electric fire through his veins that he yearned for. So, abandoning the kiss, he found the smooth column of the other man’s neck instead, nose nuzzling against it, hearing the pick-up in speed of his living heart, revelling in the gasp of his anticipatory pleasure--a gratifying and encouraging sound. Elias’ lips curled back to reveal sharp, silver-capped, fangs that he brushed against the line of Martin’s jugular, breathing in the--
Abruptly, the vampire released him and stumbled away, nose crinkled in equal parts disgust, confusion, and despair. Martin smelled wretched. Muddied, watered down, imbued with an animalistic note to the aroma that reminded him of nervous sweat. He wouldn’t be the first human to smell this way, but previously Martin had been one of the few mortals that Elias enjoyed tasting.
“What… what are you-- Why did you stop?” the other man asked… no, demanded, through a hoarse voice, making a slow show of straightening his tie and smoothing down his rumpled clothes with a slightly trembling hand before looking him up and down, expression shadowed.
“I--”
“No, no, nevermind. Don’t tell me right now. Your head is…” there was a sudden tightening to his voice, the visible notes of desire fizzling to fear, “Elias, your fucking head is about to fall off. Sit down, let me see what I can do to keep you… attached and then you’re going to tell me everything.”
“Martin…”
“Don’t Martin me, Herr Brandt,” he hissed back at him, a more typical anger asserting itself in his expression. “Whatever is going on, you’re clearly in no state to fuck me,” he hesitated, sucking in a breath while his brows pinched inwards before the expression quickly smoothed and he turned away, “Nor do you seem keen on taking my blood.”
The blond made no answer… less because of Martin’s insistence on leaving it for later and more because he did not know what to say.
“You are going to tell me everything now, Elias. Everything. Und wenn Sie das nicht tun, werde ich Ihnen den Kopf abreißen.*” He said, his tone almost cheerful, though the expression in his eyes was hard and unyielding. Elias could have easily denied him, refused, after all… the brunet served him, not the other way around, but the blond couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not after the decades of something akin to friendship that they had shared, not when he knew intuitively that Martin was replaying the moment he had recoiled from him over and over in his mind, something he had never done before during the fits of passion they occasionally partook in together.
“Very well,” he murmured quietly, prasiolite shuttering briefly before he blew out a breath and began.
No detail was left unsaid. The meeting with Gabriel and the Overseer, the children training, the mission assigned to him, the battle wherein those same children were sent to fight… and Jack Fletcher.
Martin did not speak throughout any of it, but Elias did not miss the way the other man’s clasped hands tightened to a white-knuckled grip the more the vampire extolled the taste of Fletcher’s blood. The more lost he became in recalling the entirety of their brief encounter in the alleyways--unable to stop himself from reliving it in exquisite detail despite his manservant’s obvious agitation.
It was only in the end, after a few long beats of silence had passed between them, that Martin elegantly pushed himself to his feet, long fingers fiddling with his gold-rimmed glasses for a moment before he softly cleared his throat.
“Well,” he began, one hand slipping into his impeccably tailored, brown, houndstooth wool trousers, a smile stretching his lips that did nothing to soften the hardness of his stare as his other hand brushed off the front of his charcoal dress shirt in harsh, aggressive, strokes. “I suppose it’s a comfort to know that even an old vampire can lose his mind.”
“Martin…” he murmured, a warning in his tone.
“Twenty-five years I’ve served you. Washing blood stains from your clothes, patching what can be patched, replacing what can’t be. Offering you my neck when you wanted it, my ass when you were so inclined, and doing my utmost to fulfill the vow of service my family gave you centuries ago. And now, it seems, you’re finally going to lose your head chasing after some… some…” both hands flew up from their respective positions and into the air, the smile cracking into the sneer it had wanted to be all along. “Some scrawny creature with an unusual taste!”
“Not just unusual, Martin, he--”
“‘Tasted like sunlight!’” the brunet crooned mockingly with a flutter of his lashes before the expression hardened once more, “And what taste is that? Hmm? Like burning flesh and screams? Because that is all you know of sunlight. God help me, the Templars offer you everything you could have wanted and you’re going to put it all at risk, including your own life, because of some… some… infatuation you've developed with this pathetic sack of--!”
The vampire rose suddenly with a fluidity that was entirely preternatural, and the anger in Martin's eyes sputtered out to a healthy dose of uncertainty. He seemed to shrink even as Elias loomed, not quite able to meet the frigid cold that emanated off of the blond… a breath from the grave itself.
“Who is the Master here?” Elias asked, voice a poisonous velvet.
“Y-you.”
“Don’t question me about Fletcher again, Martin,” a callused hand lifted to cradle the brunet’s cheek in his palm, thumb stroking over the slightly bristled skin before his grip shifted lower, fingers wrapping almost casually around his throat--squeezing ever so slightly, “There won’t be a next time.” Nails pressed in, deep enough to draw blood, and the manservant choked on a whimper, though the expression he wore was not quite fear, no, it settled somewhere closer to resentment… and it was not aimed at Elias.
There was a restlessness to his spirit that was difficult to quantify. His gaze would stray at times towards the corner of his room where his music stand and violin case rested. Idly, he kept trying to decide whether playing might soothe the unrest within him that left every inch of his body tensed. The wine had been meant to serve that purpose, but it was failing.
“Fiend.”
The word echoed like a hiss in his mind, snaking its way out into the air of his bedroom. It swirled with the flames, caressing up along his spine like ghostly fingers, brushing over his ear… “Fiendddd.”
BOOM.
A pulse of pain ricocheted violently from the wound in his neck, ears suddenly aching, his breath turning to ragged pants, the wine glass dropping from his grip to shatter on the ground as his left hand fluttered up to his neck--half expecting to come away with dark arterial spray coating the digits. But there was nothing. Just the ghost of his memory, the ghost of Fletcher, haunting him.
Elias’ closed his eyes tightly, searching through the ringing in his ears for the remnant taste of him, tongue sliding carefully and slowly through his mouth; fondling every tooth, stroking his gums, exploring his cheeks, searching methodically for any traces left behind. But he found none.
Growling softly, static crackling in the fringes of his mind, Elias leaned forward and groped with a slightly trembling hand for a shard of crystal among the wreckage on the floor. Finding one, he lifted it up towards his right hand.
In a casual motion that was almost obscene, the vampire pressed the sharp glass deeply into the pad of his middle finger, eyes narrowed in focus as beads of blood bubbled up from the incision. Humming, darkly, he lifted the hand contemplatively to his lips, tongue wrapping around the digit as he pulled it into his mouth. His eyes closed in concentration, caressing the finger with his tongue as he pulled the slowly flowing blood over his palate, searching for any remnant spark of Fletcher’s taste mingled within his own. He found it.
A deep shudder wracked his entire body, Elias violently impaling the finger onto his left canine, body quivering, before he tore it open all the way to the second joint.
In a rush, blood flowed down the digit and over his hand, a low moan slipping free as he popped it back into the warm cavern of his mouth, letting the crimson flow rich over his taste buds, eyes rolling back in his skull.
If vampiric blood tasted exquisite, purified and distilled through the process of imbibing living mortals, then Elias’ blood--comprised of only the finest vampires throughout the centuries--was otherworldly. And now it was lit with the faintest traces of Fletcher’s ichor. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
Again, the memory of their encounter flooded through in vibrant clarity, pulsing over him in erotic bursts, sucking the air from his lungs as his head spun. His breath grew more laden, more desperate, with every passing second. Feverish, he pulled his finger out of his mouth, surveying it through the blackened forests of his eyes, lids heavy, as the blood continued to bubble forth with every tick of his heart. It took but a few moments for his hand to be completely coated, painted in black waves that--if he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply--he found to be redolent with echoes of the Mephisto.
With every successive shuddering inhale there came a new flashing image; the feel of Jack’s nape as the vampire had dragged his fingers up his skin, the perfect press of their bodies together as he had held him flush, the dark eyes that had beheld him in defiance and fear and something else unnameable, the way his skin had felt beneath his tongue, the way...
“Fiend.”
A towering inferno of flame roared and exploded over the blackened forest within his soul, scattering pinecones and enriching the dead earth with fertile ash. It burned, tongues of fire shooting through his veins, hot enough that Elias half expected them to come crackling up through his skin to engulf him and leave nothing behind.
Sweat beaded his brow, trembling in the aftermath of the desirous heat that had flooded him. How would we taste together undiluted? He wondered, weakly lifting his saturated fingers back to his mouth.
With eyes half-shut he welcomed the digits inside himself, tongue taking them with all the gentle caressing of a lover. What little of Fletcher’s blood existed within him was growing fainter--lost by the arterial spray of his neck and then further by his own obsessive need--but there was enough of a hint, of a remainder, mixed in with the rest of his blood’s composition to make him whimper.
“I need more of him,” he whispered to the silent air, hoarse. He had failed this night but there were more nights to come. He knew getting close to the Mephisto would be nearly impossible after this, but... only nearly. “I need him,” he hissed softly again, sucking long on his fingers one last time before releasing them with a reluctant pop and falling slowly back onto the bed, drawing his hand shakily through the silvered wheat of his hair and not caring in the least if he left streaks of red behind.
Dawn was coming. Perhaps, with sleep, Elias would regain some of the sanity that the Mephisto had stolen from him... and tomorrow night, he would seek out Gabriel. They had things to discuss.
* And if you don't, I'll rip your head off.
