"Welcome..." the sleepy young man whispers, "...home." A kiss at your cheek, "My love..."

     The eyes stir. Opening, fighting. Futile but refusing to be vanquished. "Love," his lips move, it takes his voice a moment longer to sound. Lazy is the smile that follows, just the corners of his mouth upturning. Coupled with that half-lidded look...as you kiss his cheek. "Flirt..." he murmurs quietly. Upon a chuckle held in his throat like a purr. His fingers rub at your back, massaging lightly. "And you," he quietly adds, his lips brushing against your forehead. For in his arms, and he there in yours...is home, is it not?

     He smirks faintly, a weak upturn of his lips. Flirt? Ian? He brings a slight grin to that smirk, quite skeptical of the idea. "I hope..." his voice drifts aimless within the confines of the draped bed, "...not...too awful?" The words are more difficult for him now; how sleep crushes him like a toy, moreso than many Kindred. He fights a bit, but mumbles in mostly lost syllables, "...not upset...you...didn't mean...."

     His fingers trace your lips, then press against them. To quiet such. "Amazing," he murmurs. And William smiles, his lips replacing his fingers. Each word is a kiss. "Beautiful." Fangs tug upon the lower lip. "How...could this upset me?" His every word is languid and coiling of tone. His arms still around you draw you to him.

     Ian's lips move faintly, but for a moment, nothing comes. A frown, another effort, and he breathes, "I...lost...without you...Will..." He winces, it so much harder to stay with you, to talk with you....this is the part of the existence he hates...he cannot mediate. Soon, he will become inanimate again. And not remember you...not remember anything. The darkest of sleeps. The sleep of nothingness.

     Sometimes he wishes for sleep that deep...where dreams cannot come after him and taunt him with masks of the Past painted horrible. William pulls coverlets over, his body moment by moment less responsive. A flood of warmth...the chill of 'death' of sleep will soon be upon you both...him less so than you in depth of that rest. His mouth comes to rest at your eyelids. It takes many moments before he can muster the words to speak, and the voice to give it sound. "And I without you..." William takes a deep breath. It is not released for quite some time...

~*~      ~*~

     The pulling hand of withdrawing day. Though the day is not seen, nor is the warmth of day felt like fire to the skin--for such it would be--the moments leading to the setting of the sun are felt in the blood. Blood that stirs slowly. Waking. Though the conscious mind is stilled, fingers curl. William is yet wrapped around you, as he fell asleep--his position having not altered at the beckoning of Dawn. Fingers curl and muscles twitch a little. The only sign of the Mind's waking is the stubborn squeezing of eyes to shut. Of a vampire who would rather just...sleep in.

     No such stirring next to you. The young man who flushed so hot last night is cold and marbled. Easy to forget his age, certainly he wants beings to, but in the early twilight hours, his stoned stillness, his antiqued perfect reveal him for what he is. Heavily he rests around you, legs and thighs with yours, arm still across you. Your movements bring nothing from him. He must be at his weakest moment. Not the flicker of a sharp eye, the raising of a hand to catch whatever moves in his haven, nor the instant preternatural motions of defense.
     It's always been this way for him, and one morning, it will catch him dangerously unaware.

     Well it may. No less than William's fitful sleep may one day lead to danger. He has been startled out of sleep by the pictures held in blood and mind... on more than one occasion. And it has ever been so, since he can remember. One day, could it not deprive him of needed rest, and that deprivation lead to the moment...the wrong moment...to be unaware?
     The curling fingers move not again, but the stirring of blood works through him. The arm that shifts. The legs that stretch--though do not disengage from your own. And he first indrawn breath. That colors his complexion in the rising of blood. It is a breath that is sighed out. And riding upon it, Need. Need is first to rise. Long before conscious mind lifts to the surface. Lips part and are licked. The tongue pressing against the fang. Eyes do not yet open, nor now do they squeeze shut. His expression--were it seen--would be placid. Like the face of the statue of an angel...of that color, of that kind. William shifts again, his form stretching yet again. It only serves to keep the tangle in place. And serves to allow the hungry mouth to rest against your shoulder. There is only the touch as of now. Nothing more.

     It had taken a while to relearn how to wake up alone after you had left. To find self sleeping later and later, for nothing was there to require earlier awakening. Instead of rising at 5 or 6, the darkness itself would have to touch him, not available sometimes until 7...or as late as 830. And it was annoying. A continual reminder that if you had been there...
     But now, what was relearned remains. Ian lies still, made perfect by death. No heartbeat, no warmth at his skin, no stubble from the false growth of last evening....the Tremere's toy of Life seems worn off. He remains a mess, however, traces of blood still at his face, his lips, his body, hints of himself, of sweat, of you.

     He has always risen when hunger called him. Not time of day--for there have been days that the sun still shone when his eyes of evening opened--but hunger. The dryness of the throat. How it constricts. The thousand calls of flesh. Scent. Feel. Sound. Taste. William's lips part again, and the two vipered teeth lightly drag against the skin of your shoulder. Though there is no penetration--no flood of you within him--it bids a quiet, waking groan. And it is only then that eyes open.
     Brilliant blue upon first opening. Electric, before darkening with consciousness. Like night falling upon the world, the brilliant blue then become the color of Twilight ... surrounded at last by the ring of midnight purpose. There is another breath taken, you taken in it. And held. You held through it. In the years it has been since The Last Parting, he has not slept with many...very few in fact. Not out of lack of choices, mind you, but it was a continual reminder of where he should have been... William's opened eyes skim along the surface of you, almost dazed -- as if he had forgotten that this was not San Francisco... he is not the prince... and this most definitely was his sire in his arms. Realization is slow to dawn but when it does, there is a sound in his throat, that turns liquid with the fanged greeting to your flesh.

     No! His mind screams, body reaching out to push at your own. It is not anywhere as strong as Ian could; in fact, it is quite tame, mostly mediated by the fact that the Kiss is so pleasurable, so desirable, that even he swoons coming from slumber. For a moment, there is a hand at your shoulder, fingers bearing down and pushing outward, and the instinctive lunge backwards. His own eyes fly open in absolute horror, maddening panic, and he reels onto his back, taking you with him...no stake from behind, instinct demands.
     And you remain on top of him now, both hands at your shoulders, as his mind tries to work in the seconds of glorious pleasure.

     How long will it be before you see him, Ian? How many brawls have been started thus...and how many nights of ...not leaving your chamber though the world beyond was calling...have been started thus? No, screams your mind. Yes, say his eyes. The eyes darken with the taste of your blood evident upon his lips, parted in the headiness of it. One hand is to the surface of the bed. His other moving. A finger at last placed upon your lips.
     Upon you strongly pressing, with the rush of blood his body begins to warm. And dark eyes are ignited. William looks down, at you. Awake. And then it comes. The smile. It pulls upon him as slow as the hand of twilight on the sky, easing. His finger moves from your lips as his lips replace it. You will have to endure him a while.

     William. The grey eyes blink and focus, his brow narrowing as in a haze, he watches your lips touch his. It is you. His muscles give a bit then, unfolding themselves from their stiffened state, and his fingers cease their rivet grip at your shoulder and clavicle. Dried tongue touches your mouth, willing to share what you've acquired, and he swallows - nothing. A wince at the emptiness, and he laps more at you, tongue slipping inside to continue to seek. He engages you then, his arms strengthening to embrace you and draw you into him once more. Sweet William. He does hunger for you, for the taste of you...how love and blood and being all become synonomous?
     After a few moments of enduring you, he too begins to smile in his kiss, eyes open to watch you and see what has been so long missed. Watching your desire is one of the pleasures that he so loves about you. How it grows, feeds from itself, feeds from the littlest things about him, almost a presence and life of its own -- Your Desire. Do you even control it, he wonders for an instant, but it only so, for as he sees it in you, he feels it in himself.

     His desire is constant. It is that which rests just beneath the surface of his skin. It is that which rides upon the flowing of his blood, and is therefore but increased from the flowing of others within him. So, desire does feed. But it feeds from all senses. And all senses hunger.
     William's arms surround you as he sinks down, pressing against you, you into the bed. The kiss is returned, his mouth studying where last night it tore. And it breaks only for a sigh. As his arms press against you. As his shoulder rolls, and in that motion, shifts upon the bed. The bed sounds as William's large form rolls over until positions are reversed. A brow arches then, as if to ask a silent question. And with it, the quirking slant of his smile. Cocky. An insufferable look...to all save you.

Posted by rowan at January 02, 1998 01:17 AM