Characters beloved creations of James L Parriott. No copyright infringement intended.

m/m - for the unnamed faction

"Anybody who promises you that you can have everything that you want usually wants everything that you have."
"...and that once you've given them everything, you're nothing."
- Natalie and Nicholas, "Faithful Followers"

Cast In Sand
(Missing scene from end of "Hunted")
by elfin

    Nicholas stood in the corner of his loft, watching, fascinated, as the sun's late rays shone down between the slats of the open, heavy metal blinds, on to the wooden floor. Tilting his head slightly, his eyes dark pin-points of beauty, Nick reached out pale fingers to caress the edge of the nearest ray. His touch was not quite enough to burn, but he was close, he could feel it... so close. He could reach that last millimetre and experience the agony it would bring. It would be painful, excruciatingly painful, but it would be intense, an extreme, a release.

"If you do, I swear to you Nicholas, I will break your bloody neck." Nick looked up, stunned to hear his master's voice. "Close the blinds."
"What are you doing here?" Nick's voice was a heated mixture of anger, sorrow, and an almost desperate need.
In contrast, LaCroix was calm and quiet. "Close the blinds and I'll tell you."
With only a moment's hesitation, Nick thumbed the remote in his hand and the slats turned, blocking the day from the loft completely and utterly. They were plunged into total darkness for a few moments, before he lit the candle nearest to him with practised ease. He stared at the slim, cloaked figure of his father in the dim glow the small flame provided them.
"I came to thank you, Nicholas, for an... interesting morning." LaCroix stepped further into the light, stopping by the couch, a few feet from his son. "Prolonged exposure to sunlight, blessed crosses, holy water, fire, and, I might add, garlic. I do believe one of the rules was definitely not to take garlic internally."
Nick regarded LaCroix, resplendent in his usual sombre black. The golden pin that pierced his master's collar seemed familiar to him but he could not place it. Silently, he considered his options. He could tear into his father; scream and shout, release the terrible feelings of anger and betrayal that were eating into him. That would bring him retribution, a fight, some path for his feelings to take. He was not sure, though, that he could take one of LaCroix's assaults, emotional or physical, just now. He dropped his gaze to the floor. "I'm sorry." He muttered the apology, hoping his father would accept it and leave.

LaCroix kept his intense stare fixed on his creation. He had come here to yell at Nicholas, maybe even to break any bones that had not snapped in the fall he had taken earlier that morning. But the child looked as if he had been through enough for one day. Deciding to be kind, LaCroix perched himself on the arm of the black leather couch. "Would you like to talk about it?"
Nick's head snapped up. "No. Thank you."
"Well, then, would you be so kind as to drop those infuriating mental blocks of yours back into place, because what I am feeling from you is getting rather... distracting." There was a note of regret in his voice, and Nick realized just how much of his ordeal had been broadcast to his father. Without warning, his anger resurfaced, fiercer this time, stoked by the sudden realization that LaCroix had known precisely what was happening to his protege.
"You knew what she was doing to me. You knew... and you did nothing. You're the one always going on about 'eternal protection'! Where were you, father?"
LaCroix rose to his feet, eyes flaring. "You've never wanted my protection, Nicholas! Each and every time I have offered it to you, or tried to bestow it upon you, you have turned your back on me. Why should I have believed that today would be any different? Umm?" He closed in on the younger vampire, backing him slowly up to the wall.
Determined not to give in, Nicholas allowed his own fury to build, to be fuelled by the utter betrayal he felt he was drowning in. "You knew how much she was hurting me, how weak I was."
"Yes, Nicholas, weak because of your pathetic attempts to find your precious cure, weak because you foolishly believe that one of our kind can survive on the blood of long-dead animals."
Nick's eyes widened. "It was dawn, LaCroix! I was burnt, tired, hungry." He stood his ground now, his sire only inches from him. This was probably a dangerous position, but Nick did not care anymore. "I needed you this morning, and you weren't there. You promised me your eternal protection. What good is that, LaCroix, when you're the one I most need to be protected from?!"
The Elder growled deep in his throat, burning eyes set on his arrogant child. "You will never know what I have saved you from in the past, you ungrateful creature. I have always kept my promise to you."
"Always, LaCroix? Right up until the moment I actually..." His voice faded as his gaze fell upon the pin in his master's collar and a memory flashed upon him unbidden. //Paris, hundreds of years ago, a gift given to father from son, not in apology or thanks, but simply because....// Nick raised his fingers to the gold sculptured pin head; a perfectly detailed gargoyle, face full of dark, mischievous intentions. LaCroix caught a shadow of emotion as it passed through the link, and he stepped back suddenly, careful not to meet his child's inquisitive eyes.

With some difficulty LaCroix pushed away his own anger, and Nicholas' surprise. He knew the other had believed the pin lost somewhere in time, not kept as a precious reminder of what the Elder once had. LaCroix forced a change in his manner, adopting a facade of flippancy, of acting as if what happened to Nicholas did not matter, when in reality it mattered more than anything in the world.
"Nicholas.... There wasn't all that much I could do. I wasn't sure where you were, and it was day time. I thought maybe you were finally attempting to end it." LaCroix held his son's saddened gaze, and finally allowed his tone to soften slightly. "Please talk to me, mon cher."
Nick sighed, shaking his head in defeat; LaCroix knew the basics already, he only needed to fill in some details. "She hunted me, like I was some sort of creature. She knew what I was and at the start I think she wanted me to join her, to stand by her in what she saw as her sport. By the end... she just wanted to kill me, as painfully as possible."
"Why did you go? The sun was coming up."
"She had Schanke. She would have killed him." Nick threw a look at LaCroix that could have cut through stone. "I know, it's my own fault, if I hadn't gotten involved with mortals, if I didn't permit myself to care. I wouldn't have been in the situation." Nick sighed softly. "It hurt. It's been a long time since anyone but you... hurt me like that."
LaCroix regarded his protege with only a touch of the affection he felt. "Believe me, Nicholas, if I could have come to you, I would have. I couldn't rest. I could feel your panic and your fear. It's been so long since I've felt anything from you, but that.... I was worried, I wasn't sure what kind of situation could exact from you the emotions you were broadcasting."
Nick looked over at his father. "LaCroix... I can't cope with you trying to... blame me, or punish me at the moment."
LaCroix stood. "Why is it, Nicholas, that you think I only want to hurt you, or hate you?"
"Because that's all you've ever done." Nick regretted the words the moment he spoke them, knowing them to be falsehoods, but he did nothing to withdraw them. He was mentally pounded by his sire's fury for a long moment, and then a rush of air and LaCroix was gone.

A moment later Nicholas collapsed to the floor, sobbing into his hands, sitting alone when all he had ever wanted was perhaps finally out of his reach.

A single second passed.

Nick felt himself suddenly and fiercely embraced, wrapped in cool, strong arms. "Why, Nicholas, do I have to turn from you to get you to turn to me?" LaCroix's own voice now betrayed the emotion that he was pouring through the link.
Nick could not answer; the barrage of love and concern, the warmth of his father's protective embrace, all too much. He shook his head against LaCroix's chest, blood-tears running uncontrolled over his face to his sire's shirt. The hug tightened, possessed and protected as Nick released his fear and pain. LaCroix gently stroked the younger vampire's hair, soothing, holding his son as he moved to encircle him with his legs as well as his arms. He could not bare to see or feel his beloved child so upset; he knew the strength inherent in his son, and knew how and why it was out of his reach just now. He just needed to look after his creation. It was all he had ever needed, however much more he had wanted.
"Father," Nicholas managed after a very long time, "please, take me home."

Time stopped.

LaCroix hesitated. Those words, the ones he had been longing to hear for so very long, had been spoken, and now he was unsure. "Nicholas, you are distraught, hungry... you've been through quite an ordeal. Maybe... maybe you shouldn't be so hasty."
With a deep, shuddering breath Nick pulled away slightly, just to bring his eyes level with the stony coldness regarding him with so much adoration. After gazing at his father for a few seconds, he started to laugh, sniffing and almost choking. "LaCroix," he stammered, "you have chased me around the globe for five centuries. You have made fun of every one of my attempts to cut myself off from you. Now, I'm asking you. I want it to stop. I want to be free, not from you, but with you. Please, take me home."

For a long time, the two vampires sat together, wrapped up in one another, each holding the other as if that could wipe away the past and shut out the world. Somewhere in the passing of time, Nick had dropped his head into the crook of his master's neck, scraped the skin with hungry fangs, but LaCroix had stopped him. The rebuttal had drawn a painful murmur from Nicholas, but his sire's fingers, moving down his arm, over his leg, between his thighs, had at once soothed and excited him. Somehow, clothing was removed with the least movement from their rapturous position, both left wearing only the silk of open shirts. They remained bound together by arms and legs, touching each other with long, lazy strokes. Their shared orgasms were a long time coming, climaxes reached slowly with no hurry in any of their movements. They teased, licked, nipped and nibbled whatever parts they could reach without disturbing the sensual warmth that enveloped them. Finally, their joint cries of release were silenced by each biting suddenly into the throat of the other.

Nicholas drank deeply from his father, the blood singing with the joy of the long-awaited reunion and LaCroix's overwhelming love for his golden child. LaCroix tasted the elixir he had craved, since his first sample of it, throughout the centuries. Nicholas was honey, fine wine, and the most intoxicating of spices. Nicholas was his, and finally, LaCroix believed, he truly had come home.

***

fin
elfin