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amand_rDisclaimer: I do not own Nathaniel, Asher or Jason, nor any of the other characters mentioned in this
series. All of the above and below belong to Laurell K. Hamilton.
This is my first ABVS/LKH whatever fic. What worse way to introduce myself to this fandom than to write
songfic? Zang. I really don't do this often, but I've been listening to dance music, and it's pretty damned
invasive on the psyche, all sturm und drang...yum.
Thanks to the betas: Laurenar and Diane.
by Amand-r
I'm still in Hollywood;
Oh God, I thought I'd be out of here by now
Still in Hollywood,
Oh God I'm running out of will and I don't know why
I don't know why.
--concrete blonde, "Still in Hollywood"
The club is a living thing. The music of this era bleeds across the crowd, it pulses in the floor, in your very
skin and muscles as you walk across the room. It is heavy, viscous, slick and warm. It is everything that is
frenetic, this mix of beats; dancers slave to the order of measured time and drum shaking, buzzing, turning
like those tiny dancers in music boxes. The last song was a catastrophic collaboration of screaming and a
simple voice prophesying: "I got the poison, I got the remedy."
The mortals slide in rhythm, fingers and hands roaming over thigh and shoulder, cheek and neck. A girl
sucks her finger and traces it down her breasts.
Poison indeed.
Danse Macabre is mine. Not mine really; it's Jean Claude's. But tonight, as he is nowhere to be seen, I can
make it my own. I can feed from the rise of heat that comes off the floor in electrifying waves. I can bathe
in it.
I can pretend that all of this emotion is for me.
Of late I have fallen into a spiral of self-pity. It's not a pleasant thing. After all of these years, I should know
better. I spent years hating Jean Claude, hating myself, even hating Julianna. It's foolish to hate the dead.
By that, I mean the real dead, not the undead. Part of me thinks that if I had just made Julianna a vampire
instead of a human servant, things might have gone differently. Then again, perhaps not.
Since I have the club to myself, I settle in one of the private tables that are roped off from the crowd. They
occasionally wander up here to see what is beyond the special barrier, but when they see that it is only me,
and that I am not giving any special show, they mill away again. I am ignored. Scenery. I suppose that it's
better than be gawked at. Centuries ago they gawked for another reason.
It's odd, thinking of the entire scene in such a detached manner. I used to brood on it. I used to make it an
obsession. It was a fan that kept alive in my heart such a conflagration that there was no match to it.
Perhaps not even the Inferno was its rival. It's also odd that it has dampened so quickly, given the time. As
Tom Waits said, "It's time, time, time that you love, and it's time, time, time."
I let my mind wander back to the earlier events of the evening: Anita, Richard and Jean Claude battling it
out in general verbal fashion. The dissolution of the triumvirate is tricky and heart rending for all of them, I
think. Anita's heart bleeds at the loss of Richard. Richard is on a path of self-destruction. It is best, I think,
to cut ties with him and run. Everyone, even Richard, knows this, and perhaps that is what makes it
especially painful. That's why I'm here and not at the Circus.
He's a cool, blonde, scheming trick...you want him so much you feel sick...the boy can't help it, he really
can't help it now...
The worst part of all of this is knowing that selfishly, I am enthralled and excited by the rejection of the
unifying forces for the three of them. It gives me secret joy, I know, to see that they are not together. It is
not to say that I am delighted that they are in pain; I just feel a satisfaction knowing that things aren't
working out as well as Jean Claude thought they would.
Jason is here tonight. He's in among the dancers, swaying, gyrating and snatching gropes of the young
ladies' asses; it's kind of endearing to see him. Of all the people I come in constant contact with, it seems
that Jason sums up all existence the best: live while you can, he seems to say. It's very apt.
Actually, the werewolves are in full force in the club. There, among the many faces that I don't know,
Stephen is here, Vivian hanging from his arm, draped over him like that cat in the comic strip, Peanuts. I
chuckle. Sometimes the funny papers are the best part of the news itself.
Vivian and Stephen are probably the world's most amazing anomaly: and probably the worst reminder in
the world that co-existence is possible, if everyone was willing to give up something. But no one wants to
give up anything; that's our flaw. I don't want to give up my wounded pride. I also don't want to give up
Jean Claude.
Perhaps I am deluding myself. I never had him in this century, and I probably never will again. The night
Anita seduced me with the ardeur, seduced herself and us all, was just a one-time thing; her Nimir-raj saw
to that. And I can't even fault him either. Who would want to be with this scarred thing?
Self-pity is extremely satisfying, however pathetic. It's times like this I wish I could still drink beer.
Earlier tonight, I had decided to skip out as Anita and Richard started another bout of the blame session that
they call negotiation. I think that they want to try to replace Richard with Micah. That Anita is Richard's
Bolverk seems to wear on him as well. I sense (with little difficulty) that he resents her ability to do what
he cannot. It's not his fault feeling that way; a great deal of Richard is stuck in the chivalry age. That's
funny, because men treated women like dirt even then.
In the age of chivalry, love was something to be sought and then discarded once it was obtained. Chaucer
and Lewis wrote of it. It was a flower to be gazed upon but never touched. To touch it was to not want it
anymore. If Anita were that flower that Richard sought, it would be so much easier for everyone. But he
has obtained her, and is upset that she is not what he thought. It's no one's fault but his, I suppose; if this
analogy were perfect, one could say that a person shouldn't fault the rose because it is not the perfect
bloom.
A rose in perfect bloom. I used to be one of those. Self-pity. What a terrible waste of my time. I should be
laughing, dancing, over at Narcissus' licking the blood from his bleeding face. That would be exciting. So
why aren't I?
Jason is still flirting with the ladies. I wonder if he will ever tire of the game. I know he is tired of the end
result. He is tired of being a novelty. Perhaps he should find someone more permanent than the flavor of
the evening. Or perhaps he is tiring of more than sex. It might be interesting to see what he really wants. In
three years from now, will he still be Jean Claude's pet wolf? Will he still care to grace the bed of the
undead? Will the idea of that have lost its gloss?
Jason, I think, needs stability now more than ever. He needs to find it in another lycanthrope, too. He needs
to be wanted, and cherished for his soul. Just like me. Or Nathaniel, or Jean Claude. That is an insipid list.
Everybody needs to be loved.
Oh hell, everyone needs to be fucked.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
On the dance floor:
How ya'll feeling tonight? Ya'll feeling good? Well you know I'm feeling mighty good tonight...
Jason has grabbed his seventh ass of the night. This is not saying much. It's not as if he intends to go home
with anyone, and isn't as if he intends to follow through on any of it anymore. Not with any of these
creatures.
Well, he admits to himself, his eyes scanning the crowd through the showers of glitter, maybe Cherry--
Cherry, who has no intention of ever gracing him with the willing line of her torso, the stretch of her thigh,
the curve of her neck in supplication. What's the point in thinking on it?
...but you see baby, it's a little hot in here...in mo' ways than one...
His eyes scan the crowd for people he knows. A little bit of a slip with a huge rack gives him the eye. He
ignores her. She is a redhead. He doesn't do redheads.
So I've got a little proposal to make to each and every one of you here tonight...I think it's time that we all
go dive in the pool...
Jean Claude has made one hell of a club out of Danse Macabre. It is everything a decadent club could be, as
if the vampire had holed himself up in his office for a whole weekend, watching videos of "54", "Velvet
Goldmine" and the entire first season of "Queer As Folk". Glitter falls from the ceiling, dancers of both
genders and varying states of undress hang from the rafters, suspended on platforms and swings.
Somewhere there is water, waiting to rain down on the crowd.
The place, with its music, its moisture, its pulse, drips sex.
...ya'll gonna go dive in the pool? I know ya'll wanna go dive in that pool!
He spots Asher in a corner before he can smell him, that chittering little taint of dead person masked with
musk, wine, honey, mint, a plethora of spices he used to associate with Thanksgiving and Christmas, but
which now are inextricably linked, in his mind, to the undead. He can always spot them coming, or going.
It is in Jason's sensitive palette to taste them in the back of his throat no matter where he is, what he is
doing.
He takes a moment to consider what the vampires have done to him.
Asher looks sullen, as usual. They had all fled the Circus, those who could. Jason had no desire to be in
either of his masters' presence when they decided to look away from each other and their argument. So he
had slunk out, piled in the "circusmobile" (dubbed, not for its color, but for it being the only car that was
available to those who lived below the Circus. It would be a Ford Escort. Figures.) with Asher and
Nathaniel, each of them fleeing one member of the Triumvirate or another.
Now, Nathaniel is dancing in one of the boxes up in the rafters, though how he has gotten up there, Jason
can't guess. His red hair has fallen from its clasp, its own form of clothing; so hard to even see the short
shorts Jason knows are there. The leopard has his own box, his own solitary dancing space, though if he
had wanted to, Nathaniel could have sixteen nubile women (and men, mustn't forget men) up there with
him. His solo swaying, hypnotic space is one of his own construction.
This makes Nathaniel complex and alluring, and definitely more interesting.
If he were into guys, per se, Jason could see the draw of Nathaniel, with his delicate features and all that
hair. The boy has a great body. Jason thinks of Nathaniel as a boy, despite the similarity in their ages. It has
all to do with mental presence of mind.
The crowd raises their hands to the ceiling, knowing what is coming next. Jason watches Asher settle in his
seat, perhaps for this, perhaps thinking of leaving. It dawns on him to move toward the vampire, wondering
just what he intends to do.
Come on! Com'on! Let's go! LET'S GET SOAKING WET!
The sprinklers over the dance floor open and rain down on the floor below. There is a great rush of noise;
apparently, some people didn't see it coming. Jason shivers as the first burst of ice cold water hits his skin.
He spares a glance for the leopard above; Nathaniel doesn't even seem to have noticed that he's getting
drenched.
Jason thinks, secretly, that Nathaniel isn't as lost as he seems. Perhaps they're all being played by that face.
Not bad! Now I know there's quite a few of you who don't quite get it yet, but I want to see each and every
one of you in the pool with me tonight...
Asher likes to hang out at Guilty Pleasures and Danse Macabre, which is good because no one else seems
to want to anymore. The dancers still dance, the strippers still strip, but it is Anita's house that holds all the
fun. There, and below the Circus. Blood and sex and sex and blood, and dead things and must and sod and
pitch...Jason also suspects that Asher, like him, no longer enjoys that form of excitement as much as he
once did.
Jason thinks back to the three months ago when Asher traded his affections to Narcissus. That night he
wasn't privy to what went on behind the closed doors of Narcissus's den of iniquity. And after they left, not
Anita, Richard or even Jean Claude has any idea what transpired.
Jason's mind is a fertile place. And while he doesn't particularly care for bondage, the more he stares at
Asher, the more his curiosity gets to him. The scars don't bother him the way they used to.
You see, baby, the vibe is right, and the feeling's right...and we're all just one big happy family here
tonight...so I want to see each and every one of you, dive in the pool with me tonight...
What bothers Jason about Asher is his lack of poise. His body is constantly still, not in the way that
vampires can hold crystalline still, but in the way that an animal holds still after it's caught in a trap and
realizes that movement will cause it pain. Asher's face, when no one is looking, doesn't even bother to mask
what he feels. It is only when he is aware that he is the subject of another's gaze that he smiles, frowns,
scowls, cries. Perhaps not that last one.
Perhaps that wouldn't bother Jason. How does a centuries old creature lapse into that kind of clumsiness?
Jason swims through the crowd to the private tables, batting away a little brunette. Asher is still, one hand
up under his chin, legs out, ankles crossed, long hair draped over his face. His eyes, Jason notes, are on
Nathaniel, or one of the many rafter-dwelling dancers who shake the rain from their hair and limbs in long
languid movements that match the music.
Does Asher think that no one looks at him anymore?
Jason can answer that. Badly.
I wanna see it! Are you ready? Come on! I wanna hear it! LET'S GET SOAKING WET!
Jason is already soaking wet. The music is droning. There is a moment, really, when dance music ceases to
entice him. Every time it's like this; the first hour it pushes him on --dance more, move faster and faster--
and then it clicks off in his head, ceasing to be erotic or fulfilling, only to suddenly seem....
Banal.
He has to get off the dance floor.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I am not in the mood to be here. Why am I here? I know why: the Circusmobile. I like to drive the
Circusmobile. That I jump at the chance to drive around in a Ford Escort is a perfect example of how bad
my life has gotten.
I should go home. I should go to the circus, rip the clothes from Jean Claude's perfect body and--
Start over.
The music on the dance floor is changing. Nathaniel is spinning, in slow motion. Anyone who didn't know
he was a shifter would by the way his body moves. It's okay for me to look when I know he's not looking
back. Nathaniel is used to having strangers rape him with their eyes, so I do that now. I can see the rivulets
of water on his chest, and the little curls of red hair that plaster to his stomach, the backs of his thighs.
That he is alone up there suggests something to me, but I don't dwell on that. There is no room in my
fantasy for emotional baggage.
I am so completely absorbed, off centering my eyes, that I don't even notice Jason ascending the stairs until
he's almost three feet away from me. I have enough saving grace to give my face a disapproving look as I
turn to him.
"This is a private area--"
"All the tables are taken up with drunk people," he comments, sliding into a chair. His limbs immediately
splay themselves out, as if he has mastered the art of the sprawl. It is the lazy slouch of the eighteenth
century prostitute. At least, that's what it looks like. "And if one more girl tries to grab my crotch, I think I
might, uh, sorry."
His face is apologetic, nay, piteous enough to make me want to reach over the table and crush it with my
right hand. It would be a shame, I know, and Jean Claude would be upset. If it weren't for the talent I have
in ignoring displacement, I might have done it.
But I don't want to kill Jason. Bat him around, maybe, but not kill him. He's too innocent and knowing at
the same time. He possesses more claims than I do to be here, and I respect that, for once in my long life.
Going to miss him inside my heart, when there's springtime in the air...loneliness tearing me apart...being
loved makes me scared...
Instead, I decide to let him stay here with me, in the round table of misery. Besides, Jason wouldn't
recognize sulking if it hit him with a rotting hand. What has he ever had to feel self-pity for?
Jason uses a napkin to wipe the water from his face, leaning back into the plush velvet seat, fully aware that
he is ruining the fabric. "I saw you up here, and I thought--"
"Indeed."
Jason smiles slowly, like the smile wiped across his face. So many cinematic effects.
Nobody suffers like I do, nobody else, oh no...nobody suffers like I do, nobody else, but you...
I try to concentrate on another dancer, perhaps the little red head who is forlornly staring at my table
companion. It does not escape my notice that she has not even seen me. It doesn't surprise me either.
I run a hand through my hair. All the humidity has made it aggravatingly wavy. "You are being 'scoped', as
it were," I say dryly. Then I look him in the eye. "Please don't let her come up here. I don't think I could
take the slathering."
Jason shakes his head, his hair swinging about his ears. "I saw her earlier. Not my type." He cocks his head.
"Your type?" Then he frowns. "What is your type?"
This is the first time Jason has ever even bothered to ask about my sex life, or lack thereof. Perhaps it's a
ploy to dig out information on my own recent sexual habits. So instead, I shrug. "I don't have a type. Not
anymore."
You have to leave by now, and we knew it would be time...you said you would be back soon, soon is not
soon enough...
It's easier to watch Nathaniel, his hair stuck to his body so that it looks like a second skin. It is easier to
look at the pulsing strobe lights. It is easier to just look out.
"How do you know she's not checking you out?" he asks suddenly. His face is completely deadpan when I
whip my head back around to stare at him. Both eyes are crystalline clear, no haze of drunkenness, though I
knew he was sober already. Drunkenness would have been a good excuse for his behavior.
So instead of being offended I laugh. I laugh for his boyishness, the very quality that makes him endearing,
his positive outlook, his ability to be so very kind and cruel in the most saccharine way.
Laughter is unexpected, I can see. I proffer a weak explanation. "No one sees me. Least of all when you're
here," I explain. If I were Jean Claude, this would be different. If I were anyone other than who I am, he
might have been right. But I'm not, and he knows it.
Does he?
"Oh, I don't know," he drawls. "I mean, I saw you." Then he leans forward, his face tired, and I begin to
wonder why he left the dance floor. Not to talk to me. His eyes are hard. They are, I see for the first time,
old. "You do know Asher, that I can see you. Right?"
It is in that moment that I realize that our conversation is something I don't quite understand. Or perhaps,
when one of his hands slides over mine, and we share a single split second of understanding, a wolf of two
decades and a vampire of countlessly more, hiding amidst a crowd of people because it's the only place we
won't be seen for what we are.
And what are we anyway?
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Nathaniel stops when the music pauses for a moment. He blinks several times, adjusting his eyes to the
lights. For the past half-hour he has kept his eyes closed. It is something he does often. Long periods of
time where he likes to be alone in the dark, moving to external forces.
He is wet, but that doesn't bother him. He is alone up on the platform, but that doesn't bother him either.
Being alone is something Nathaniel has taken a liking to a few months ago. Before, before Anita, before
Micah, before Gabriel, he had liked to be alone. It wasn't until things got helplessly out of control and he
had lost who he was in the sea of what he was that Nathaniel had latched onto others to define himself.
Being alone is Anita's gift to him. It is the best gift he's ever gotten.
Far off on the other side of the room, Asher stands, a fuzzy scent filled with ochre and pine. The vampire is
fading farther and farther from Nathaniel's vision, his hand being pulled into the darkness by another body,
this one quite warm, and quite familiar.
He closes his eyes again as the music starts to play, bass invading his chest, for a split second stopping the
hearts of everyone in the room.
FIN
series. All of the above and below belong to Laurell K. Hamilton.
This is my first ABVS/LKH whatever fic. What worse way to introduce myself to this fandom than to write
songfic? Zang. I really don't do this often, but I've been listening to dance music, and it's pretty damned
invasive on the psyche, all sturm und drang...yum.
Thanks to the betas: Laurenar and Diane.
by Amand-r
I'm still in Hollywood;
Oh God, I thought I'd be out of here by now
Still in Hollywood,
Oh God I'm running out of will and I don't know why
I don't know why.
--concrete blonde, "Still in Hollywood"
The club is a living thing. The music of this era bleeds across the crowd, it pulses in the floor, in your very
skin and muscles as you walk across the room. It is heavy, viscous, slick and warm. It is everything that is
frenetic, this mix of beats; dancers slave to the order of measured time and drum shaking, buzzing, turning
like those tiny dancers in music boxes. The last song was a catastrophic collaboration of screaming and a
simple voice prophesying: "I got the poison, I got the remedy."
The mortals slide in rhythm, fingers and hands roaming over thigh and shoulder, cheek and neck. A girl
sucks her finger and traces it down her breasts.
Poison indeed.
Danse Macabre is mine. Not mine really; it's Jean Claude's. But tonight, as he is nowhere to be seen, I can
make it my own. I can feed from the rise of heat that comes off the floor in electrifying waves. I can bathe
in it.
I can pretend that all of this emotion is for me.
Of late I have fallen into a spiral of self-pity. It's not a pleasant thing. After all of these years, I should know
better. I spent years hating Jean Claude, hating myself, even hating Julianna. It's foolish to hate the dead.
By that, I mean the real dead, not the undead. Part of me thinks that if I had just made Julianna a vampire
instead of a human servant, things might have gone differently. Then again, perhaps not.
Since I have the club to myself, I settle in one of the private tables that are roped off from the crowd. They
occasionally wander up here to see what is beyond the special barrier, but when they see that it is only me,
and that I am not giving any special show, they mill away again. I am ignored. Scenery. I suppose that it's
better than be gawked at. Centuries ago they gawked for another reason.
It's odd, thinking of the entire scene in such a detached manner. I used to brood on it. I used to make it an
obsession. It was a fan that kept alive in my heart such a conflagration that there was no match to it.
Perhaps not even the Inferno was its rival. It's also odd that it has dampened so quickly, given the time. As
Tom Waits said, "It's time, time, time that you love, and it's time, time, time."
I let my mind wander back to the earlier events of the evening: Anita, Richard and Jean Claude battling it
out in general verbal fashion. The dissolution of the triumvirate is tricky and heart rending for all of them, I
think. Anita's heart bleeds at the loss of Richard. Richard is on a path of self-destruction. It is best, I think,
to cut ties with him and run. Everyone, even Richard, knows this, and perhaps that is what makes it
especially painful. That's why I'm here and not at the Circus.
He's a cool, blonde, scheming trick...you want him so much you feel sick...the boy can't help it, he really
can't help it now...
The worst part of all of this is knowing that selfishly, I am enthralled and excited by the rejection of the
unifying forces for the three of them. It gives me secret joy, I know, to see that they are not together. It is
not to say that I am delighted that they are in pain; I just feel a satisfaction knowing that things aren't
working out as well as Jean Claude thought they would.
Jason is here tonight. He's in among the dancers, swaying, gyrating and snatching gropes of the young
ladies' asses; it's kind of endearing to see him. Of all the people I come in constant contact with, it seems
that Jason sums up all existence the best: live while you can, he seems to say. It's very apt.
Actually, the werewolves are in full force in the club. There, among the many faces that I don't know,
Stephen is here, Vivian hanging from his arm, draped over him like that cat in the comic strip, Peanuts. I
chuckle. Sometimes the funny papers are the best part of the news itself.
Vivian and Stephen are probably the world's most amazing anomaly: and probably the worst reminder in
the world that co-existence is possible, if everyone was willing to give up something. But no one wants to
give up anything; that's our flaw. I don't want to give up my wounded pride. I also don't want to give up
Jean Claude.
Perhaps I am deluding myself. I never had him in this century, and I probably never will again. The night
Anita seduced me with the ardeur, seduced herself and us all, was just a one-time thing; her Nimir-raj saw
to that. And I can't even fault him either. Who would want to be with this scarred thing?
Self-pity is extremely satisfying, however pathetic. It's times like this I wish I could still drink beer.
Earlier tonight, I had decided to skip out as Anita and Richard started another bout of the blame session that
they call negotiation. I think that they want to try to replace Richard with Micah. That Anita is Richard's
Bolverk seems to wear on him as well. I sense (with little difficulty) that he resents her ability to do what
he cannot. It's not his fault feeling that way; a great deal of Richard is stuck in the chivalry age. That's
funny, because men treated women like dirt even then.
In the age of chivalry, love was something to be sought and then discarded once it was obtained. Chaucer
and Lewis wrote of it. It was a flower to be gazed upon but never touched. To touch it was to not want it
anymore. If Anita were that flower that Richard sought, it would be so much easier for everyone. But he
has obtained her, and is upset that she is not what he thought. It's no one's fault but his, I suppose; if this
analogy were perfect, one could say that a person shouldn't fault the rose because it is not the perfect
bloom.
A rose in perfect bloom. I used to be one of those. Self-pity. What a terrible waste of my time. I should be
laughing, dancing, over at Narcissus' licking the blood from his bleeding face. That would be exciting. So
why aren't I?
Jason is still flirting with the ladies. I wonder if he will ever tire of the game. I know he is tired of the end
result. He is tired of being a novelty. Perhaps he should find someone more permanent than the flavor of
the evening. Or perhaps he is tiring of more than sex. It might be interesting to see what he really wants. In
three years from now, will he still be Jean Claude's pet wolf? Will he still care to grace the bed of the
undead? Will the idea of that have lost its gloss?
Jason, I think, needs stability now more than ever. He needs to find it in another lycanthrope, too. He needs
to be wanted, and cherished for his soul. Just like me. Or Nathaniel, or Jean Claude. That is an insipid list.
Everybody needs to be loved.
Oh hell, everyone needs to be fucked.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
On the dance floor:
How ya'll feeling tonight? Ya'll feeling good? Well you know I'm feeling mighty good tonight...
Jason has grabbed his seventh ass of the night. This is not saying much. It's not as if he intends to go home
with anyone, and isn't as if he intends to follow through on any of it anymore. Not with any of these
creatures.
Well, he admits to himself, his eyes scanning the crowd through the showers of glitter, maybe Cherry--
Cherry, who has no intention of ever gracing him with the willing line of her torso, the stretch of her thigh,
the curve of her neck in supplication. What's the point in thinking on it?
...but you see baby, it's a little hot in here...in mo' ways than one...
His eyes scan the crowd for people he knows. A little bit of a slip with a huge rack gives him the eye. He
ignores her. She is a redhead. He doesn't do redheads.
So I've got a little proposal to make to each and every one of you here tonight...I think it's time that we all
go dive in the pool...
Jean Claude has made one hell of a club out of Danse Macabre. It is everything a decadent club could be, as
if the vampire had holed himself up in his office for a whole weekend, watching videos of "54", "Velvet
Goldmine" and the entire first season of "Queer As Folk". Glitter falls from the ceiling, dancers of both
genders and varying states of undress hang from the rafters, suspended on platforms and swings.
Somewhere there is water, waiting to rain down on the crowd.
The place, with its music, its moisture, its pulse, drips sex.
...ya'll gonna go dive in the pool? I know ya'll wanna go dive in that pool!
He spots Asher in a corner before he can smell him, that chittering little taint of dead person masked with
musk, wine, honey, mint, a plethora of spices he used to associate with Thanksgiving and Christmas, but
which now are inextricably linked, in his mind, to the undead. He can always spot them coming, or going.
It is in Jason's sensitive palette to taste them in the back of his throat no matter where he is, what he is
doing.
He takes a moment to consider what the vampires have done to him.
Asher looks sullen, as usual. They had all fled the Circus, those who could. Jason had no desire to be in
either of his masters' presence when they decided to look away from each other and their argument. So he
had slunk out, piled in the "circusmobile" (dubbed, not for its color, but for it being the only car that was
available to those who lived below the Circus. It would be a Ford Escort. Figures.) with Asher and
Nathaniel, each of them fleeing one member of the Triumvirate or another.
Now, Nathaniel is dancing in one of the boxes up in the rafters, though how he has gotten up there, Jason
can't guess. His red hair has fallen from its clasp, its own form of clothing; so hard to even see the short
shorts Jason knows are there. The leopard has his own box, his own solitary dancing space, though if he
had wanted to, Nathaniel could have sixteen nubile women (and men, mustn't forget men) up there with
him. His solo swaying, hypnotic space is one of his own construction.
This makes Nathaniel complex and alluring, and definitely more interesting.
If he were into guys, per se, Jason could see the draw of Nathaniel, with his delicate features and all that
hair. The boy has a great body. Jason thinks of Nathaniel as a boy, despite the similarity in their ages. It has
all to do with mental presence of mind.
The crowd raises their hands to the ceiling, knowing what is coming next. Jason watches Asher settle in his
seat, perhaps for this, perhaps thinking of leaving. It dawns on him to move toward the vampire, wondering
just what he intends to do.
Come on! Com'on! Let's go! LET'S GET SOAKING WET!
The sprinklers over the dance floor open and rain down on the floor below. There is a great rush of noise;
apparently, some people didn't see it coming. Jason shivers as the first burst of ice cold water hits his skin.
He spares a glance for the leopard above; Nathaniel doesn't even seem to have noticed that he's getting
drenched.
Jason thinks, secretly, that Nathaniel isn't as lost as he seems. Perhaps they're all being played by that face.
Not bad! Now I know there's quite a few of you who don't quite get it yet, but I want to see each and every
one of you in the pool with me tonight...
Asher likes to hang out at Guilty Pleasures and Danse Macabre, which is good because no one else seems
to want to anymore. The dancers still dance, the strippers still strip, but it is Anita's house that holds all the
fun. There, and below the Circus. Blood and sex and sex and blood, and dead things and must and sod and
pitch...Jason also suspects that Asher, like him, no longer enjoys that form of excitement as much as he
once did.
Jason thinks back to the three months ago when Asher traded his affections to Narcissus. That night he
wasn't privy to what went on behind the closed doors of Narcissus's den of iniquity. And after they left, not
Anita, Richard or even Jean Claude has any idea what transpired.
Jason's mind is a fertile place. And while he doesn't particularly care for bondage, the more he stares at
Asher, the more his curiosity gets to him. The scars don't bother him the way they used to.
You see, baby, the vibe is right, and the feeling's right...and we're all just one big happy family here
tonight...so I want to see each and every one of you, dive in the pool with me tonight...
What bothers Jason about Asher is his lack of poise. His body is constantly still, not in the way that
vampires can hold crystalline still, but in the way that an animal holds still after it's caught in a trap and
realizes that movement will cause it pain. Asher's face, when no one is looking, doesn't even bother to mask
what he feels. It is only when he is aware that he is the subject of another's gaze that he smiles, frowns,
scowls, cries. Perhaps not that last one.
Perhaps that wouldn't bother Jason. How does a centuries old creature lapse into that kind of clumsiness?
Jason swims through the crowd to the private tables, batting away a little brunette. Asher is still, one hand
up under his chin, legs out, ankles crossed, long hair draped over his face. His eyes, Jason notes, are on
Nathaniel, or one of the many rafter-dwelling dancers who shake the rain from their hair and limbs in long
languid movements that match the music.
Does Asher think that no one looks at him anymore?
Jason can answer that. Badly.
I wanna see it! Are you ready? Come on! I wanna hear it! LET'S GET SOAKING WET!
Jason is already soaking wet. The music is droning. There is a moment, really, when dance music ceases to
entice him. Every time it's like this; the first hour it pushes him on --dance more, move faster and faster--
and then it clicks off in his head, ceasing to be erotic or fulfilling, only to suddenly seem....
Banal.
He has to get off the dance floor.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I am not in the mood to be here. Why am I here? I know why: the Circusmobile. I like to drive the
Circusmobile. That I jump at the chance to drive around in a Ford Escort is a perfect example of how bad
my life has gotten.
I should go home. I should go to the circus, rip the clothes from Jean Claude's perfect body and--
Start over.
The music on the dance floor is changing. Nathaniel is spinning, in slow motion. Anyone who didn't know
he was a shifter would by the way his body moves. It's okay for me to look when I know he's not looking
back. Nathaniel is used to having strangers rape him with their eyes, so I do that now. I can see the rivulets
of water on his chest, and the little curls of red hair that plaster to his stomach, the backs of his thighs.
That he is alone up there suggests something to me, but I don't dwell on that. There is no room in my
fantasy for emotional baggage.
I am so completely absorbed, off centering my eyes, that I don't even notice Jason ascending the stairs until
he's almost three feet away from me. I have enough saving grace to give my face a disapproving look as I
turn to him.
"This is a private area--"
"All the tables are taken up with drunk people," he comments, sliding into a chair. His limbs immediately
splay themselves out, as if he has mastered the art of the sprawl. It is the lazy slouch of the eighteenth
century prostitute. At least, that's what it looks like. "And if one more girl tries to grab my crotch, I think I
might, uh, sorry."
His face is apologetic, nay, piteous enough to make me want to reach over the table and crush it with my
right hand. It would be a shame, I know, and Jean Claude would be upset. If it weren't for the talent I have
in ignoring displacement, I might have done it.
But I don't want to kill Jason. Bat him around, maybe, but not kill him. He's too innocent and knowing at
the same time. He possesses more claims than I do to be here, and I respect that, for once in my long life.
Going to miss him inside my heart, when there's springtime in the air...loneliness tearing me apart...being
loved makes me scared...
Instead, I decide to let him stay here with me, in the round table of misery. Besides, Jason wouldn't
recognize sulking if it hit him with a rotting hand. What has he ever had to feel self-pity for?
Jason uses a napkin to wipe the water from his face, leaning back into the plush velvet seat, fully aware that
he is ruining the fabric. "I saw you up here, and I thought--"
"Indeed."
Jason smiles slowly, like the smile wiped across his face. So many cinematic effects.
Nobody suffers like I do, nobody else, oh no...nobody suffers like I do, nobody else, but you...
I try to concentrate on another dancer, perhaps the little red head who is forlornly staring at my table
companion. It does not escape my notice that she has not even seen me. It doesn't surprise me either.
I run a hand through my hair. All the humidity has made it aggravatingly wavy. "You are being 'scoped', as
it were," I say dryly. Then I look him in the eye. "Please don't let her come up here. I don't think I could
take the slathering."
Jason shakes his head, his hair swinging about his ears. "I saw her earlier. Not my type." He cocks his head.
"Your type?" Then he frowns. "What is your type?"
This is the first time Jason has ever even bothered to ask about my sex life, or lack thereof. Perhaps it's a
ploy to dig out information on my own recent sexual habits. So instead, I shrug. "I don't have a type. Not
anymore."
You have to leave by now, and we knew it would be time...you said you would be back soon, soon is not
soon enough...
It's easier to watch Nathaniel, his hair stuck to his body so that it looks like a second skin. It is easier to
look at the pulsing strobe lights. It is easier to just look out.
"How do you know she's not checking you out?" he asks suddenly. His face is completely deadpan when I
whip my head back around to stare at him. Both eyes are crystalline clear, no haze of drunkenness, though I
knew he was sober already. Drunkenness would have been a good excuse for his behavior.
So instead of being offended I laugh. I laugh for his boyishness, the very quality that makes him endearing,
his positive outlook, his ability to be so very kind and cruel in the most saccharine way.
Laughter is unexpected, I can see. I proffer a weak explanation. "No one sees me. Least of all when you're
here," I explain. If I were Jean Claude, this would be different. If I were anyone other than who I am, he
might have been right. But I'm not, and he knows it.
Does he?
"Oh, I don't know," he drawls. "I mean, I saw you." Then he leans forward, his face tired, and I begin to
wonder why he left the dance floor. Not to talk to me. His eyes are hard. They are, I see for the first time,
old. "You do know Asher, that I can see you. Right?"
It is in that moment that I realize that our conversation is something I don't quite understand. Or perhaps,
when one of his hands slides over mine, and we share a single split second of understanding, a wolf of two
decades and a vampire of countlessly more, hiding amidst a crowd of people because it's the only place we
won't be seen for what we are.
And what are we anyway?
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Nathaniel stops when the music pauses for a moment. He blinks several times, adjusting his eyes to the
lights. For the past half-hour he has kept his eyes closed. It is something he does often. Long periods of
time where he likes to be alone in the dark, moving to external forces.
He is wet, but that doesn't bother him. He is alone up on the platform, but that doesn't bother him either.
Being alone is something Nathaniel has taken a liking to a few months ago. Before, before Anita, before
Micah, before Gabriel, he had liked to be alone. It wasn't until things got helplessly out of control and he
had lost who he was in the sea of what he was that Nathaniel had latched onto others to define himself.
Being alone is Anita's gift to him. It is the best gift he's ever gotten.
Far off on the other side of the room, Asher stands, a fuzzy scent filled with ochre and pine. The vampire is
fading farther and farther from Nathaniel's vision, his hand being pulled into the darkness by another body,
this one quite warm, and quite familiar.
He closes his eyes again as the music starts to play, bass invading his chest, for a split second stopping the
hearts of everyone in the room.
FIN
