NaNoWriMo 2009 - Blood Soaked Lovers [ 8 / 10 ]
Title: Blood Soaked Lovers
Rating: NC-17 / MA
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairings: Light Sulu/Chekov, Implied Kirk/Sulu, some more slight McCoy/Chekov
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not the characters nor the song titles
Warnings: oocness, mild angst, some version of "racism"
Summary: This had to be the sign; the omen in the circle of evil.
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CHAPTER EIGHT: DAS OMEN IM KREIS DES BÖSEN
(THE OMEN IN THE CIRCLE OF EVIL)
It took the four of them two and half hours to reach the village, just in time for the sun to begin to stretch her long beams over the horizon and give light to the world. Pavel Chekov couldn’t say he was entirely relieved when he saw the size of the village not all that far in the distance because that would mean he’d have to be warm enough to allow thought. His face was numb, his nose tingling and running while his eyes watered constantly against the biting wind. He could barely feel his feet and his hands, while they clung to Hikaru’s in his pockets almost desperately, were starting to lose feeling too. The warmth of the other man against his back as they walked in perfect stride together, despite the slight height difference, should have been more comforting than it actually was. However, in his mind’s eye, all that he could see was the downright betrayal of his lover.
While they had been at the base, before Pike walked into the room, Pavel hadn’t entirely been able to keep his jealousy hidden away. After all, it had been clear the two showered together, even if it was just from having been in the gym at the same time and he knew that to his beloved, being naked in front of another person was not all that shameful for him. After all, the older man had had some kind of experience in such relationships before he was captured and taken to the castle. He knew how they were supposed to work, how gentle a lover’s touch could be instead of the rough pulling and grabbing he had known. After all, Sulu was the man who patiently taught him the difference after those long nights when he had endured more beatings than anything else and wanted to give up. The man was his first love, his only love in that hell, and now… now he was reaching out to another man, someone older and much more experienced.
He had snapped at the other in Russian, accused him of cheating on him, but Hikaru had said they were simply close friends and nothing more. Of course, Jim had to try and interrupt, which only made the whole thing worse, especially when Sulu tried to change from Russian into English to allow the non-native speaker -which was obvious by the accent he had heard on the man’s Russian the few times he spoke it- to participate in this very personal conversation. That had been the final straw. He hadn’t spoken to the other man since that day and he wasn’t planning to unless absolutely necessary.
However, all the time he had spent in solitude had most certainly helped him to focus his thoughts on a certain vampire doctor and decide for himself if he was one the creatures many of the vampires in the castle had spoken of when they thought he was too young, too stupid, to remember their large words. A dragula; a vampire who was pure enough in soul to retain his humanity despite the ritual that turned him into a vampire which sacrificed half the soul to the devil. It was said that these vampires, while still susceptible to some things, still retained enough of their humanity that they retained their reason. They weren’t so much animals who could speak as they were men with a gift. However, with humanity as corrupted as it was, according to what those vampires had said, a human being remaining pure enough to become a dragula, especially one as old as the doctor appeared to be, was rare indeed and as such, so was that particular breed of vampires.
He had decided, upon reaching that conclusion, that he would do what he could to learn more about the surgeon, to see if he really was worth trusting, despite death’s touch still lingering on his too cool skin. He could barely remember spending time with his parents, let alone other human adults, outside the castle and the ones he spent time with inside were all meek creatures after a while. One could only keep fighting for so long before the very soul seemed to give up trying to escape the monsters’ hold. Perhaps he could learn what it was that kept a human being pure enough to retain that humanity despite the body’s curse and through that learn it was to be perfectly human.
Even now his thoughts were consumed by the doctor who was far gentler with him than he had been with most of the others, a doctor who let him decide his treatment for the most part unless he was refusing something the man deemed necessary to save his life. He let the human treat himself, showed him how to care for minor injuries so they didn’t become infected and therefore force him to come to the surgeon under the influence of severe illness. He remembered, amongst his research, reading about the past of the man as far back as they had a record for. He had been a doctor well over a hundred years ago with a wife and child though his wife, for undisclosed reasons, left him, taking his daughter with her. The man had been so broken up by this he had joined the church and within a year of doing so had been turned by a vampire he had been hired to drive out of town. Perhaps, he reasoned, some of the tenderness in the man’s touch, his reluctance for force anything onto a patient unless absolutely necessary, remained from those old days with his family.
Pavel felt his numb foot catch on something and stumbled but the hand that helped him stay upright was not the warm hand of Hikaru but the cool hand of the “priest”. His grey eyes looked up questioningly as to where Sulu had gone when he was lost in his thoughts, only to see how he walked side by side with Kirk a ways ahead of them, the two of them talking about something that the younger human couldn’t hear this far away. There was a pain in his chest that he knew was hardly physical but it still didn’t keep him from feeling it. He bit his lip and closed his eyes for a second, not answering the “are you alright?” he heard from his right side while he forced himself to keep walking. What had he done that was driving Sulu away from him?
It wasn’t until the four of them got to the village inn that they were staying at, the Poor Man’s Inn, and the warmth of the building began seeping into his clothes that the young Russian dared pull himself out of his thoughts and look around. It was certainly not the nicest place he had ever been -he had lived in a castle for a while- but it was homier than both the base and the castle’s dungeons. The building itself was made of wood and gently lit by the flickering lights of various candles and the fire burning gently in the fireplace. There were paintings in frames hanging gently above the mantle and about the darkly wallpapered room and the windows were covered in frost on one side and a faint fog on the other. McCoy was sitting by the fire, shivering as he brought his trembling hands to cold, and it took Pavel a minute or two to remember that the cold the man claimed to feel for these people was indeed false.
While Jim was taking the lead and arranging for the rooms the supposed priest and training went to his “mentor” and pretended to try and warm him up, rubbing his hands rather roughly over the gloves. He got a blank stare for a moment for his actions then nodded minutely and let the kid do what he wanted. He looked darker, more sinister, with the hood over his head. Perhaps it was because his robs looked more like the old fashioned monk’s robes with it on? At least, he thought to himself, this man wasn’t actually as effected by the cold as he acted like. It would have been a pain to try and bring him back from that.
“Thank you, Pavel,” the priest said, even his voice shaking though the teenager worked to keep his gaze on his hands rather than looking up into those hazel eyes he knew were touched by red. Why those same eyes refused to leave his dreams, even now, he wasn’t sure. “I think I can move enough to get up to my room now.”
Taking that as his cue, Chekov stood and helped the other to his feet, keeping a hand on his shoulder as he walked, partially curled on himself towards the chairs where Jim was, holding two keys, watching and waiting for them with Hikaru. The young Russian was pleased when he noted a flare of jealousy and anger in his lover’s eyes but he kept the pleasure he felt at that well hidden. It would do no good to bring it up now, especially where it could very well compromise the mission. As it was he had to play nice with his fellow seminary student. Perhaps, though, this mission would be what it took to decide things for them once and for all between them.
Together the group of four climbed the stairs, the bags on their shoulders much heavier now that they were relaxed with the warmth of the room around them, and stepped into on room which had two beds in it for the four of them. As soon as the door was closed behind the group, the vampire straightened himself and stopped shiver, pulling his hood back and running his fingers through his hair with a sigh of annoyance. Before he said anything, he made his way to the window and shut the thick curtains over the window, glad for the complete inability of sunlight to penetrate through them, and turned to face the four. Pavel and Hikaru began to put their things away while Jim sent an encoded message back to Pike to say that they had arrived safe and sound. The fact that he was hanging some black suits and shirts with white Roman collars for himself seemed surreal, especially since he was hanging them up in the closet between Sulu’s larger ones and McCoy’s spare cassock.
“So, how are we doin’ the sleepin’ arrangements?” Leonard asked the group, pulling out his holy water containers and carefully setting them on a nightstand along with his Bible. “I don’t care which bed I get since I’m gonna be sleepin’ only in daylight while y’all are runnin’ around doin’ your thing but it’s still nice to know who I get to sleep next to when I get back in the mornings.”
Jim flopped down onto the bed that the doctor was standing nearby and folded his hands behind his head and crossed his ankles. “I say you sleep with me and leave the love birds a bed to themselves.” His eyebrows wiggled suggestively and Pavel couldn’t help the touch of a blush that crossed his face at the mention of his. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of being in a relationship, however strained, with Hikaru but rather that he be called something like that. It had taken him a while to figure out what the term meant and he was fairly certain he was not what was called a “love bird”.
But McCoy’s rough voice saying “How about you go find yourself a pretty local girl and get that sexual tension seen to be a professional?” pulled him out of his thoughts and got him to see how, regardless of his words, the oldest man in the room had a touch of a grin on his face. This was… banter? Yes, that sounded like the right word. Banter. He was still trying to add more words, especially slang terms and phrases that were commonly used by the people around him, into his mental dictionary. It was a pain to ask what the odd sounding, apparently non-literal phrases meant every time some Standard speaker said them and it almost always made him feel stupid to ask. After all, Hikaru was starting to use them too and he didn’t want to give the man any more reason to get closer to Kirk than he already had.
Kirk started to talk very quickly, too quickly for Chekov to understand, and he so he tuned the man and took his opportunity to move towards the bathroom, leaving Sulu to join the commander and vampire’s conversation while he washed his face, hopefully to get rid of a bit of the fatigue he was certainly feeling now that he was warm and had sensation in his hands and feet. Perhaps, when he was done, the commander would be ready to get down to business and explain the plans for the day. While they had spent all night traveling, it would do them no good to waste the day sleeping. While McCoy couldn’t exactly go out into the sunlight, they rest of them could. Besides, they needed to survey the town before they got any real investigating done to find out what qualified as out of the normal for the townsfolk.
While he waited, he looked up at the mirror, taking in just how much of a mess looked compared to how he felt. His curls were still as short as he usually kept them but were in complete disarray and while he was used to spending long hours barely sleeping, it really took a toll on his appearance or rather, at the very least, it did today. There were a few dark bags under his eyes and his naturally pale skin just looked even paler. His face looked thinner though that may have been due to the lighting more so than his actual thinness and he felt that in the past months since he had finally been freed of those heavy chains he had gained enough weight to keep the doctors, especially the doctor in the other room, happy with him. If there was one thing he hated outside the castle walls it was that he was always being treated like he was made of glass.
Finally the water felt warm enough to touch without making his fingers numb from the cold and he cupped it carefully into his hands before splashing his face with it and turning the faucet off, letting the shock of the cool water to his skin wake him up a little bit more, before turning around and using a towel to dry it off. There was movement behind him and he didn’t need to look up to be able to tell that it was Hikaru who was moving to wrap his arms around him. He let him. While he was still angry with the bastard, it was an anger he could stuff away in a pocket in the back of his mind for now. He’d snap at the man that night when they had returned from their day, assuming either of them had the energy for it.
He felt the other man’s warm breath against his neck and unconsciously he tilted his head away to give the other human better access to it. “What’s got you in such a funk?” Hikaru’s familiarly soft voice said as he placed a soft kiss to his skin. They really couldn’t afford to leave marks on each other. Not yet. “You’ve been acting strange since the meeting at base. Something you wanna tell me about?”
Pavel shook his head. “Nyet. Now ees really not time to talk about zees. Ve hawe misshun to do. After misshun today, eef ve are not so tired, da?” The arms around his waist squeezed him for a minute and he reached back over his shoulder to run his fingers through that soft black hair. “Ees priwate matter.”
“Okay. If that’s what you want.” One more kiss was placed on his neck before he was let go. “I’ll hold you to that though.” Chekov turned around and smiled for his lover but it was a forced smile. If the other noticed he said nothing about it. In fact, he smiled back and the two of them stepped out into the main room just in time to see Kirk sit up, with his earlier discarded notepad, presumably to discuss the plan. With a tired sigh, he took a seat on the bed he would share with Sulu, barely noticing when the other too a seat beside him and playfully jostled him. His attention was rather caught by the graceful movement of the vampire as he swept into the windowless bathroom, presumably to change in peace; a movement he watched inconspicuously from under his lashes while his commander talked about the general plan. He couldn’t explain what it was that attracted his attention like that but his gut told him it was important to note so he did.
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A few hours later found an exhausted Pavel was standing at the foot top of the stairs of the local church, watching the sun start to come down from it’s noon high place while he waited for his partner to emerge from within the stone building that, surprisingly enough, was pretty solid considering it had been built well over four hundred years ago. There was little sign of wear and tear on the place and the stained glass windows, at least from the inside, looked polished and well maintained. Thankfully, on their way to this place in the middle of nowhere Romania, he had read up on the church rites and easily picked up what he was supposed to know at this level of his “training” as to avoid embarrassing himself when he walked in. Even if he personally did not believe in a god of any kind, he did know that the character he was portraying did so he played along with it. He couldn’t tell how Hikaru was doing though that was mostly because he was taking in the sights of the village instead of watching him.
It had been so long since he had been in true sunlight that while he relished its warmth against his skin even with the cold of the wind it still took his eyes a while to get used to the brightness of it’s beams against the snow that blanketed the whole village. The people that bustled about around him, dressed in warm but simple clothing, didn’t pay him any heed but they weren’t overly cruel either, apologizing -or at least it sounded like they were apologizing- when they ran into him or Hikaru and answering nicely as best they could what questions they posed to the shop keepers and so forth about where certain places were or where they could find certain villagers. The old women seemed especially nice, reaching up to pinch his cheeks and saying something with a big smile on their faces before they let the pair of them go. He got the feeling he would have to ask the commander what that was about when the day was done.
As it was, he let the wind blow his curls away from his face and tug at the hem of his long monk’s robe, the heavy material being worn both to keep him warm and keep him looking more simple and much less modern, therefore helping him to blend in a bit. His hands were tucked into the pockets of the robe, still gloved, of course, and snow caked his well insulated boots. The silver crucifix that hung over his robes bounced gently against his chest when he walked, the weight oddly comforting and the warmth of the blades he wore just inside his sleeves for relatively easy access should it be required relaxed him just a little bit more. Storm grey eyes watched the villagers, not knowing what to look for to be out of the usual but still enjoying just people watching for now since he was outside amongst the masses, free do walk where he wished instead of chained to the ground and observing them only from the high windows just as the sun set itself on the horizon.
The sounds of various people climbing the steps next to Pavel to enter the church didn’t bother him, though he did tense up, ready to strike, when someone stepped too near, even if it was only for a second or two. Even with those weeks at headquarters, surrounded by people, he was still getting used to being in a crowded area surrounded by people who had body heat and real emotions, people who wouldn’t grab at him and force him into a dark room to do things he really didn’t want to do and would come running to help him if he did need it. It would take a long time before he felt completely at ease around groups that were too large but this village was so small he doubted crowding would be an issue period wherever it was they had to go to ask more questions. He didn’t notice a pair of cloaked figures standing not too far away from the church in an alleyway, watching him with dark eyes nor did he noticed when said figures disappeared amongst the crowds.
“Pavel!” He turned in the direction he name was all but shouted and saw that Hikaru was waiting for him just at the foot of the stairs. Chekov shook his head to clear it of any further distracting thoughts and slipped his hood on over his hair and half his face again as he climbed down the stairs, unconsciously lifting the hem of the robe to avoid getting it too caked in snow. Even with the hood covering half his lover’s face, the Russian could almost see the smile on his features. The smile made one come to his face also and his heart flutter in his chest still. He hoped that theirs was a relationship that would last through this rift and repair itself and that his earlier jealousy and fears were completely unfounded. He didn’t know if he’d be able to keep himself together if it didn’t last.
“Deed you find anyzing eenteresting Hikaru?” he asked when he was close enough to be heard without shouting or risk having too much of their conversation overheard. He knew they couldn’t disclose too much with so many people around them, especially since they didn’t know who was able to understand Russian or Standard around them, even if they were constantly switching between the two. The Asian man nodded and the two began walking towards the East. “Eet ees somezing zat ve could use vit our vork?”
“Definitely,” Sulu answered, softly, almost as if he was sharing a secret, “though I’ll tell you about it later. I think Father McCoy needs to hear about it too.”
While they were out amongst the common folk, it was about as much as he was going to get out of the other man so he left it alone and turned his attention instead to the sight of a familiar man running towards them. The sun’s bright light made it hard to focus on the figure but the minute it called him “Chekov!” he knew it was the commander. He looked up at his partner in disguise, using the hood to hide where his eyes were, and it was hard to miss the smile that touched the older man’s face. He sighed and shifted his weight on his feet. This was really only waiting until they got behind closed doors. After that, he couldn’t be held responsible.
Kirk caught up to them a minute and a half later, breathing heavily, almost wheezing, but certainly seeming happier than he had when they had left this morning. There was a twinkle in his oddly blue eyes and a smile pulling at his lips. “You talked to who B- the Father wanted you to talk to?” The slight slip up made the teenager grin inwardly. This man was apparently so used to being casual with the gruff vampire that he had trouble breaking that one habit. This was just another piece of evidence to his mind’s eye that the blood sucker certainly retained a good portion of his humanity; he’d have to in order to be close friends with this man.
“Da, ve got zem,” Pavel answered before Hikaru could, “Eet vas no real trouble.” With his accented Standard and Hikaru’s exotic look, it was easy to convince the people around here that they really were foreigners just passing through whose mentor fell ill on the walk in. “Did you get accomplished vhat eet vas you needed to do?”
Now that his breath was caught for the most part Kirk stood up straight and looked around them. “Yup,” he said still somewhat breathlessly, “though I don’t know about you all but I need to get me something to eat and drink before we head on back and catch ourselves some zees.” His blue eyes caught theirs and his smile became mischievous. “You two comin’?”
“Oh definitely,” Sulu said most enthusiastically as he stepped away from his lover, going to stand next to the other, older blond, “I’ve been starving all day and you know what kind of mood that puts me in.” His smile meant that he was joking but Pavel couldn’t bring himself to let the casual way that was said, or the dark memories that came with the words, flow over him. He froze and within his robe folded his arms around himself. For seven long years all he really knew was hunger. He was still getting used to having a full belly when he went to sleep every day. Granted, Hikaru had only had to endure it for three years but surely a few months was not all that was needed to ease him back into the life he had known before his capture?
There was the movement of a hand in front of his face and he blinked his grey eyes in surprise, looking up suddenly enough to make his hood bounce though he did sort his arms back into his sleeves and wrapped the sleeved arms around himself. He realized he must have been asked a question when he was stared at blankly. “Oh um… sorry. I vas not paying attenshun. Vhat vere you asking?”
Jim’s golden eyebrow reached up towards his hair. “I asked if you want to come with us. Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Da, I am just tired. I zink I vill go back to ze hotel and check on ze Fazer. Perhaps he vill he conscious enough to eat somezing.”
The two older men shrugged at each other and nodded before turning away, presumably to head to a restaurant to eat, while Chekov headed down the other main street to make his way back to the hotel. While he knew full well that the doctor would undoubtedly be sleeping, at least he would be able to eat and take a nap. If the commander and Hikaru needed him, they would call anyway. He doubted they would if the looks they gave each other were anything to go by. His blood boiled for a moment but he managed to force it to simmer down. They were friends. Those two were just friends and nothing more. It wasn’t like he had proof that his lover what cheating on him, just feelings and those had been wrong before.
A dog barked not too far away but he didn’t pay it any heed until he heard a woman’s scream of panic. Even if he wasn’t supposed to give himself away as a Federation member, he wasn’t fast enough to quell the urge within himself to run to the source of the scream. By the time he got there, his hood had fallen back, leaving his hair a mess, but he didn’t notice the sudden lack of warmth the second his eyes fell on what had caused the woman to scream and hide in the arms of a man. Fear turned his very human blood into ice.
Painted on the wooden fence in the blood of the mangled dog that lay at the base, was a Satanic pentagram, complete with the drawn in goat’s head and symbols surrounding the four points. The dog’s eyes were used in the place of the drawn goat’s and the heart was nailed right next to it, under of which was a message written in Cyrillic. “Beware, my servants,” it said, “for the price of betrayal is high.” The handwriting was not hard to remember either. This had to be the sign; the omen in the circle of evil.
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PART SEVEN: MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN
PART NINE: ACCORDING TO PLAN