FIC: The Leaving Hour (AB)
Am I the only person writing AB fic on lj anymore? Anyway, I have some reservations about parts of this, but give it a read and tell me what you think.
The Leaving Hour
An Anita Blake fanfiction story by mhalachaiswords
Summary: A month after the events in Danse Macabre, Anita thinks about her life and her relationships.
Disclaimer: The Anita Blake universe belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. I'm only borrowing and will return all at the end of the fic.
Characters: Anita, Jean-Claude, Nathaniel, Micah
Rating: PG-13 for angst.
Word count: 6,050, complete.
Author's Note and spoilers: This arose from me trying to deal with issues from Danse Macabre, the latest Anita Blake book. As such, this story is one massive spoiler from that book.
~~~
I carefully laid my cell phone down on the seat in the jeep, watching as the glowing screen slowly faded to black. I felt bad about waking Micah, but he'd wanted to know if I was going to be home tonight.
Just one more obligation in my life, telling people where I was and what I was doing, so they wouldn't worry. I never asked him to worry, but the ardeur had seen to that.
I shook my head. I didn't want to think about this now. It wasn't late, around two in the morning, but I was exhausted. Only part of it was physical. I'd worked for a little bit tonight, two zombies, but nothing that would explain my lethargy.
In the back of my head, I knew exactly why I felt so run down, but I wasn't going to think about that. They say denial isn't just a river in Egypt, and I was aware that over the years I had developed an amazing ability to convince myself that things weren't as bad as they seemed. Even if sometimes they were worse.
The outside chill from the St. Louis winter was seeping into the car. I picked up my phone and my keys and stepped out of the car into the biting cold. Someone had salted the parking lot, so I didn't slip on the ice on the way to the back door of the Circus of the Damned.
The walk down the uneven stone stairs was marginally warmer than outside. Few people were around. This was the best time of night for the inhabitants of Jean-Claude's underground lair, and they were all out and about, doing whatever it was vampires did. I didn't run into anyone who wanted to talk.
Jean-Claude's bedroom door was closed. I pressed my palm against the wood and felt the inside of the room. No vampires, no lycanthropes, nothing.
Before I could put a lid back on my power, it slipped between my fingers and ran down the hall on little kitty-cat feet. As it moved through the Circus, faster than a thought, I knew exactly how many vampires there were in the stone hallways, felt their power and their age.
Frightened, I slammed my metaphysical shields up as fast as I could.
I didn't used to be able to do this and now I couldn't stop. My powers slipped my control more often than ever now. I;d thought that if I fed the ardeur more, I'd be safer, but it was turning out that the more power I gave it, the more it wanted.
Jean-Claude had said it was probably a temporary growing pain, and that it would settle down soon into a pattern closer to his ardeur. I hadn't bothered to remind him that I wasn't like him, that my ardeur wasn't reacting the same way that his did.
After I was released from the shifter hospital last month, I hadn't said a lot of anything to Jean-Claude.
It seemed as if no one had felt the power rush, or if they had, they weren't going to investigate. Carefully, I pushed the door to Jean-Claude's room open, then closed it firmly behind me.
The sheets on the neatly made bed were the cerulean blue of Asher's eyes, covered by a duvet wrapped in black silk. I averted my eyes as I walked past the bed. It bothered me that Jean-Claude had those sheets, and it bothered me that it bothered me. I mean, I'd told Asher everything was okay between us, right?
Blood loss has its own special pain. It was hard for me to remember around the whole impending unconsciousness, but the vague bits I did remember usually involved my entire body in pain as my veins collapsed, as my body realized that it was dying. Every other injury, burns and gunshots and knife wounds, the body knows how to handle from millions of years of evolution.
There's no going back from blood loss.
I kept going toward the bathroom. Dr. Lillian had used blood from so many lycanthropes to save my life. I'd had transfusions before, but never so much. Micah had caught me staring at myself in the mirror after I came home, looking for changes. He hadn't laughed at me, but he didn't have to. I knew how ridiculous I was being, but I couldn't stop.
I switched on the lights in Jean-Claude's bathroom and closed the door behind me. The room was glistening white and it hurt my eyes. My eyes hadn't hurt before I gained so many powers, before I almost died, before I had the blood from so many others in my veins.
I left the lights on.
The bath was large and took a long time to fill. After I stripped and pinned up my hair, I stepped into the tub and sat in the slowly rising water, pulling my knees up to my chest.
It had been a long month, since the ballet and the visiting masters came to St. Louis. Some days, it felt like forever, since I had learned that the ardeur was messing with my head and the heads of everyone I had thought I loved. Other days, like today, it was a fresh pain that made me wonder if I was ever going to be able to live through it.
This wasn't like me. I usually didn't spend so long worrying about stuff I couldn't change, but in the last month, I'd had a hard time remembering how to let things go. Things were slow at work, but I spent more time there than I had in a long time, doing paperwork and organizing things. I worked with the police as much as they needed me. Zerbrowski had told me if I didn't stop spending so much time at the station, he was going to kick me out himself. He'd been joking. I think.
Luckily, Christmas was coming, so I could spend some of the empty time in my days shopping, trying to figure out what to buy the people in my life. It was easy to buy gifts for Cherry and Zane and Gregory and Vivian and Stephen and Jason, as well as some of the other werewolves. I wasn't sure if I should buy stuff for Micah's half of the pard, or the vampires.
The water lapped at my elbows, warm against my skin, but I still felt cold.
I didn't know what to get Nathaniel or Micah. What do you get for people who are tied to you, when you can't really be sure they want to be there?
I pushed those thoughts away and reached for the soap. I wasn't going to do this. No, scratch that. I couldn't do this. It was pathetic, but I had a physical reaction akin to a panic attack when I started to wonder when they would all leave me.
I spent enough time in the tub to make my fingers wrinkly, thinking about nothing. The new cross-shaped scar on my palm was still pink against my skin. I wondered when it would fade to white, like all my other scars, and if I'd live long enough to see that. With the way my life was going these days, I wouldn't bet on it.
After my bath, I dried myself, let my hair down, and slipped into Jean-Claude's black robe. It was too large on me, making me look like a child playing dress-up. I stared at my reflection in the foggy mirror for a minute, trying to understand what they saw in me. I blinked, and in the blurred reflection I saw Belle Morte staring back at me. Heart pounding, I stepped back. The illusion was gone, and it was just me.
I left my clothes lying in a pile, taking only my gun, and made my way to Jean-Claude's bed. The floor was cold on my bare feet, but I hesitated. I didn't want to get into the bed with those ice-blue silk sheets.
I was being silly, I scolded myself. They were just sheets. Jean-Claude used different color sheets all the time. If he was using these ones, it wasn't because he wanted Asher more than he wanted me--
I stopped in the middle of the floor, horrified. Where in the hell had that thought come from?
My hand was shaking as I pushed my hair out of my face. Jean-Claude loved me. I had told Asher that we were fine. Micah and Nathaniel loved me, really, even if the ardeur had made them into different people for me to love them, feed from them.
They weren't going to leave me, and I wasn't going to die.
Angry at myself, I stormed across the room and turned off the lights. In the dark, the sheets didn't have any color to bother me.
I made my way back across the room in the pitch black and slid into bed, not bothering to get out of Jean-Claude's robe. I curled up into a ball under the covers, wishing I could feel warm again.
I breathed in deeply, taking in the faint scent of Jean-Claude's cologne from the robe and the pillows. It used to be enough to calm me, to make me feel safe. I wanted that feeling back, but how could that happen when I didn't know which feelings were mine anymore? I hadn't been able to acknowledge that I truly loved Jean-Claude until after we married the marks and I gained the ardeur. What if that love was a lie, pushed on me by my ardeur?
Finally, alone in the dark, I fell asleep.
~~~
A touch on my cheek pulled me awake. "Shh, ma petite, it is all right," Jean-Claude whispered against my hair.
"What are you doing here?" I asked groggily, blinking in the dim light. How long had I been sleeping?
"It is my bed, ma petite." Jean-Claude slid his arm around my stomach and curled up along my back. I let him cuddle against me. "Why are you here?"
I twitched my shoulder in a shrug. "I was tired."
Jean-Claude's faint breath was cold against my neck. "I am told you arrived at only two hours past midnight. You could have driven home."
It wasn't a question, so I didn't say anything.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he continued.
"No."
Jean-Claude moved his hand under the covers to touch my throat. It was a simple gesture, but it pulled me instantly, suddenly alert as his fingers brushed over the scarred skin where Asher had bitten me.
"Ma petite?"
"What time is it?" I asked hurriedly.
Jean-Claude's hand moved away from my throat. "It is minutes after dawn."
I had slept for almost five hours. So why did I feel so horrible?
It took me a few seconds for my brain to work through the rest of the meaning in Jean-Claude's words. "Wait, what? How are you here?"
"It seems that being so close to you at dawn, ma petite, allows me to stave off the inevitable death of the new day."
I sat up all the way, pulling Jean-Claude's robe tight around me. His words had been nothing but neutral, but a small ball of ice settled itself into my chest. "Glad to hear it," I said, faintly surprised at the brittleness in my voice. "You can leave now."
Jean-Claude lay still, staring up at me. "What do you mean, ma petite?"
The silk of Jean-Claude's robe was rough under my clenched fingers. "You don't need to stay." As I spoke, I moved off the bed to the ice-cold floor. Whatever warmth had seeped into my skin while I slept was now gone.
"Where else would I go?"
I didn't answer him until after I had retrieved my wrinkled clothes from the bathroom. "There has to be a reason you came in here this morning." I turned away from him as I slid the robe off my shoulders.
"Cannot my reason be simply that I wanted to spend some time in your presence?" Jean-Claude asked. I wasn't sure if not seeing his face as he spoke made things easier or not. "You have not sought out my company in recent weeks. I had hoped this was a sign you wanted to see me. I know I have wanted to see you."
My hair swung down, blocking my face, as I shimmied into my pants. "I can't see why," I muttered. Even though my voice was barely audible, vampire hearing would pick up my words.
Jean-Claude sighed, his sorrow brushing over my skin like a hand. I slammed up my mental shielding instantly, pushing Jean-Claude out of my head. I'd had enough of Jean-Claude's interference, of being at the Circus, of my life. I pulled on the rest of my clothes in a hurry, wondering what the hell I was doing here, what answers I'd been trying to find.
"Ma petite, I wish you could love and value yourself the way that we do," Jean-Claude's voice floated at me in the dim light.
My fingers stilled on my gun, my brain twisting Jean-Claude's words around. Maybe-- No. I made sure the safety was on the gun, action born out of habit, and shoved the Browning into my shoulder rig. I grabbed my jacket and walked towards the door.
"Anita, wait."
I stopped in the doorway. I didn't want to look back, but Jean-Claude always had a reason when he used my full name. Normally it was anger, but today... today I didn't know what the hell was going on.
Jean-Claude knelt in his bed, holding the cerulean blue sheets up to his waist. He had one hand on the wooden post of the bed frame, the muscles in his arm flexed. He looked like temptation and sex, and I wanted nothing more than to be far, far away.
"Would you care to have dinner with me tomorrow night?" Jean-Claude asked wistfully.
I took a deep breath and turned away. "I should go," I said as I closed the door behind me.
~~~
I drove west until a little warning light came on, telling me that I almost out of gas. I pulled into the next gas station, near a little strip mall just off the freeway. There was a Denny's down the street, and the picture in the window of pancakes made my stomach grumble. The sun was almost directly overhead and I hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon.
No one paid me any mind as I took a booth near the window, facing the door. The waitress brought me coffee and dropped a sticky menu on the tabletop. I ordered at random, and the waitress left me to my coffee.
The coffee was horrible, but at least it was warm. I sipped at my cup, feeling the liquid start to warm me on the inside.
Without having to pay attention to the road or anything, my mind pulled itself out of the freeway-enforced haze I'd been in for hours. Unfortunately, Jean-Claude's words were too fresh in my mind to ignore, like I'd been doing with everything else.
Maybe Jean-Claude was right. Maybe the reason I couldn't let this go, couldn't shrug off the idea that it was the ardeur that everyone loved and not me, was that I was having a hard time imagining why anyone could love me these days. What was there about me to love?
I set my coffee cup down and stared out the window. The December sun was harsh, bright through the dusty window.
I tried to protect everyone, but that was usually with pain and violence. Not much to love there. What else was there? It couldn't be my sparkling conversational skills. I didn't have any hobbies, couldn't cook, hated cleaning.
There was one thing that I supposed the guys could get on side with, but the idea that the men in my life were only into the hardcore group sex as the main reason to stick around me was just so fucking depressing that I buried my face in my hands.
There had to be a reason. Because if there wasn't a reason, then it was all about the ardeur, and that meant it wasn't real. That they stayed for an illusion, because of metaphysical power tricks, and not because of me.
The waitress brought my food and I stared at it, unseeing. It took me a minute to realize that I'd ordered pancakes covered in blackberries.
I had to force myself to eat. Every mouthful tasted like ashes on my tongue.
~~~
Nathaniel was watching television in the living room when I got home. He looked up as I came into the room. "Hi," he said softly.
"Hi." I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear as I joined him on the couch. "What are you watching?"
"The Weather Channel." Nathaniel turned lavender eyes to me. "They're talking about mudslides."
"Fun." I pulled my legs up to my chest. The heater hadn't been working properly in my car on the drive back, and I was freezing. "How are you?"
"Fine." Nathaniel held out the remote control. "Do you want to watch something else?"
"No, it's okay." I rested my chin on my knees and watched the screen for a while.
Nathaniel waited until the show changed, into weather forecasts in the Pacific Northwest, to say, "You stayed at the Circus last night?"
I didn't answer. He most likely knew where I'd been, Micah would have told him.
"Anita? Is something wrong?" He touched my hand, his skin so hot I jerked away. "Anita?"
I shifted away from him on the couch. "Nothing's wrong," I whispered.
Nathaniel hit the mute button on the remote, plunging the house into silence. He sat up and stared at me, his long hair spilling over his shoulder. I wanted nothing more than to plunge my fingers into that hair, to feel it sliding over my body like vanilla silk. But it wasn't real, what Nathaniel felt for me. It wasn't real.
"You can tell me anything you want," Nathaniel said into the stillness.
"I know," I said. I hugged my knees to my chest, my belt buckle digging into my stomach. It hurt, but it wasn't enough.
I couldn't talk to Nathaniel. I'd spent so long trying to make him independent, before I finally realized that I wanted him around. He wanted to be here, I'd thought, but I knew now that it was the ardeur that kept him in my life. How could I talk to him, confide in him, when I knew it wasn't real?
"Did something happen?" Nathaniel asked gently. "Last night? At the Circus? Or at work?"
I shook my head. "Nothing happened."
Nathaniel slid off the couch to the ground. He knelt back on his heels in front of me, not touching. I looked at him, so close, and wanted to cry.
"I don't know what's real anymore," I whispered. The words spilled out of my mouth before I could stop them.
"What's not real?" Nathaniel whispered back. He went up on to his knees.
Digging my fingers into my legs to keep from crying, I shrugged.
"Is this about Asher?"
Startled, I frowned at Nathaniel. "Is what about Asher?"
"Never mind." Nathaniel licked his lips nervously. "Can you tell me about it? Please? I want to help."
It took me a few minutes to speak abound the lump in my throat. "It's just..." I cleared my throat and tried again. "I don't know who I am anymore. With everyone... I see you all reacting to me and I don't know who that woman is." Nathaniel opened his mouth to respond, but I hurried on. If I didn't finish, I knew I'd never be able to say this to anyone. "What if the ardeur is taking away all that I am, until there's nothing left that's me?"
"No, no," Nathaniel said, horrified. "It's not taking you away, it's not changing you! You're still you, that's not going to change."
The front door closed, a quiet sound, but still enough to jerk me to my feet. I wiped my cheeks just as Micah walked into the room. "What's going on?" he demanded as he shed his jacket.
"Nothing," I said. "Do you want some coffee? I think I want some coffee."
"No, I don't want--" Micah broke off mid-sentence. "What's happening?"
"Nothing," I said with a warning glare at Nathaniel. "Nothing's happened."
"Nothing," Micah repeated. "You're upset because of nothing."
"I'm not upset!" I exclaimed.
Micah took a step forward. "Just like you haven't been lying awake for hours at night, pretending you're asleep? Or that you've lost five pounds in a month because you're not eating enough?"
My heart pounded in my throat. I thought they hadn't noticed my insomnia, and if my clothes hadn't been fitting right... I recovered quickly enough by swinging fully into anger. "Have you been keeping tabs on me?"
"Tabs?" Micah looked stunned, but only for a moment. "Anita, I live with you, we sleep in the same bed almost every night, how the hell am I not going to notice what's going on?"
"Nothing is going on!" I exclaimed. Behind Micah, Nathaniel knelt in a ball on the floor, making himself as small as possible.
Micah put his hands on his hips, trying to control his temper. "I have been trying, Anita, everything you ask. I've been keeping my mouth shut, in case you could work through this, but I don't know how much more of this I can take!"
My heart almost stopped. No, he couldn't be leaving, he couldn't be doing this. But hadn't I been thinking about this? About how I couldn't think of a reason for any of them to stay with me?
I would not cry. If he wanted to leave, I would not let him see me cry. I pulled myself together, chin held high, and said, "Fine. You know where the door is."
Micah blinked at me. "What?"
"No need to drag this out into a scene," I said. "Just go."
Nathaniel slowly uncurled himself and stood up. "Anita, Micah isn't leaving you," he said quietly.
Micah's mouth dropped open. "Leaving? Why the hell do you think I'm leaving? Why don't you trust me?" He raked his hands through his curly hair. "What else can I do?"
I couldn't meet his eyes. I didn't know what to do. Everything in my head was jumbled up and so ugly.
"I've done everything you've asked," Micah continued, relentless. "I don't push you, I don't tell you when I think you're about to crash, when I think you're driving yourself too hard--"
"Hey, I never asked you to do that!" I burst out. My fingernails were digging into my arms so hard that I knew I would have bruises, but it was the only way I had to keep from falling apart.
"You don't have to ask, Anita, I do it because I love you!"
"No, you don't!" The words were out of my mouth before I had a chance to think. Micah couldn't have looked more shocked if I'd pulled out my gun and shot him. I couldn't take the words back now; I could only go on, even if saying these things felt like dying. "None of you do, it's the ardeur that did this. Once you realize--"
"Realize what?" Micah interrupted. He reached for me, but I backed up out of reach.
I took a breath. "Once you realize that you've been mind-fucked by something like vampire powers, you'll have to leave," I said, sounding perfectly reasonable. "You can't stay."
Micah stared at me. When he didn't speak, my heart sank even lower. He couldn't even argue with me on what I'd said.
Nathaniel shuffled over to my side. He laid a hand on my arm, and even though I'd watched him do it, the physical contact was such a visceral shock that I jerked away.
"I'm not leaving," Nathaniel said. He leaned against the wall, such a picture of innocence and home that I wanted to cry. "I fell in love with you the first time I met you. You saved my life and didn't ask a single thing of me in return. You were the first person in my life since Nicky that took care of me because you wanted to, not because of what you could take from me."
I pressed my back against the wall, wishing I could take this day back, go back to that gas station in the middle of the state, and change it so I'd just kept driving west.
"Micah's not leaving, either," Nathaniel continued. "It's not the ardeur that makes him stay, he knows what it's like when he's being mind-fucked, and this isn't it."
I chanced a glance up at Nathaniel. "How... how do you know that?"
"We talked about it." There was nothing on Nathaniel's face to indicate that this was a joke, but I still didn't know how to react.
I ducked my head. I couldn't deal with this, with any of this, so I picked the most inconsequential thing. "You guys talk about me?"
Nathaniel nodded and moved closer. This time, I let him touch my arm. "You're an incredibly important part of our lives, Anita, you have to know that."
I stared at Nathaniel's hand, at his thumb rubbing soft circles on my skin. "Jean-Claude said..." I swallowed hard, past the lump in my throat. "He said that I don't love or value myself."
Micah came up on my other side, leaning against the wall but not touching. Not yet. "He was wrong, Anita," Micah said quietly. "I know people who don't love themselves. I've seen the destruction that they bring on everything around them. You're so different from that, in every way. You can't care about others unless you care about yourself."
Nathaniel gently squeezed my arm. "Look at all the good you do, Anita. The pard, the vampires, the werewolves, even with the police."
I shook my head. "Jean-Claude--"
"What did Jean-Claude say to you?" Micah asked. "Was that exactly what he said?"
I hesitated, then shook my head. "He... um, he said that he wished I could love and value myself like he did."
Micah touched my shoulder "Anita, that's very different from what you said before. That's not saying that you don't love yourself at all. He meant that he loves you so much and he wants you to be happy."
"But what if the only reason Jean-Claude loves me is the ardeur?" I wanted to pull away from Micah, but he and Nathaniel had me sandwiched effectively between them. "Or else some kind of power thing, or any number of reasons that aren't me?"
Nathaniel moved even closer and rubbed his cheek against mine. "That's not it at all," he murmured. "Jean-Claude loves you."
"You don't know that." Damn it, there were tears in my voice.
"I do know that." Nathaniel's arms went around me in an embrace. It felt safe. "The reason I know that Jean-Claude loves you is because deep down, you know that Jean-Claude loves you."
I closed my eyes. Everything was so messed up and I didn't know what to think, or how to feel. Everything had been messed up for a long time. If I wanted to be honest with myself, it wasn't the revelations last month that started this. This had been building since June, when Micah moved in and I started feeding the ardeur off Nathaniel. I'd just been ignoring the building problems, but they hadn't gone away.
"Anita?" Micah's voice made me open my eyes. "Do you want to leave?"
I moved back so I could focus on his face. "What are you talking about?"
"Do you want to leave?" Micah pressed. He was so serious. "You keep talking about the rest of us leaving, but what about you?"
I shrugged out of Nathaniel's embrace and backed away from both of them. "Why would I leave? What brought this on?"
Micah gave me a wry, bitter smile. "You've been worrying that we'll leave, but did you ever think that we might worry the same thing?"
My stomach clenched painfully at the thought of leaving this house, this life I'd built with Micah and Nathaniel and Jean-Claude, even if it was built on a web of lies. I shook my head so hard my hair flew in my face. "I'm not leaving, I don't-- I don't want to leave."
Micah followed me into the center of the room. "That's exactly how we feel," he told me.
I shook my head again. "But it's not the same," I argued. Panic was building in my chest again, frantic. "Everyone leaves, and there's never anything I can do to stop it."
"Anita, I don't know what you mean," Micah said.
I turned on my heel and walked over to the large window. The afternoon sun glinted off the pristine snow that covered the yard and the bare trees. The sun was bright enough to make my eyes water. "Everyone always leaves me," I said in a small voice. "My fiance in college, Richard, my mom. One day they're just gone." I touched the glass with my fingertips. The window looked strong, but with the smallest amount of pressure in just the right place, it would shatter into a million pieces. "You know what they say about all your failed relationships. They always have one common factor."
"Anita, your mother died," Micah said. He sounded confused, which I supposed I couldn't blame him for. His mother wasn't dead; he'd grown up with two parents who wanted and loved him. He didn't appear in all the blond-haired, blue-eyed family pictures like some little dark mistake.
Hands touched my waist, then slid around to hug me from behind. Nathaniel rested his cheek on my shoulder. It was calming and I didn't want it to be. "My mom left us too," he said. My hands drifted down to cover his. "I don't know about forever, Anita, or how long we'll live, but I can't think of a single reason that I'd ever want to leave. You gave me back hope, and no one will ever take that away from me."
I sniffled as I turned my head. "Even if I gain fifty pounds and take up llama farming?"
Nathaniel smiled at me bumping his nose against my cheek. "I like llamas." The almost-happy expression faded from his face. "Would you do me a favor?"
I looked at him suspiciously. "What?"
"Talk to someone?"
"No."
"Anita--"
"No," I said again. "Who can I talk to about this? I can't talk to a psychiatrist, or a therapist, or anyone. Even if it's under confidentiality, there's still a danger that they'll tell someone, and that could put us all in danger, all of Jean-Claude's vampires and you and the werewolves--"
"I meant someone you trust," Nathaniel interrupted gently. "I meant Jean-Claude."
I tensed immediately. "No."
Nathaniel hugged me tighter. "Anita, he's loved you forever. He knows you so well, and he knows the most about the ardeur."
I twisted away from Nathaniel, putting my back against the window. Micah was standing in the middle of the room, watching us
"I'm not going to talk to Jean-Claude," I said. I was so tense that my shoulders and neck hurt. "What if I'm right? What if the only reason he loves is because of the ardeur?"
"Then he'll still love you, Anita, that's not going to change." Nathaniel pushed his hair behind his shoulder. "If you can't talk to me or Micah, please talk to Jean-Claude, to someone."
I shook my head.
Micah cleared his throat. "Anita, even if the ardeur never happened, you still would have saved me and my whole pard from Chimera." He walked around the couch, his hands in his jeans pockets. "You'd still be my friend, even if we never became lovers. With the ardeur, you're still you, and I love you."
I closed my eyes. I wanted desperately to believe him, and Nathaniel. I wanted to believe that they'd love me regardless, but something in me still held back. I couldn't let these fears go. I wanted to cling to the idea that Micah and Nathaniel might be right, that they really did love me.
I wanted to believe it, but I didn't know how.
Nathaniel came over to me and slipped his hand into mine. I let him tug me over to the couch and sit me down between him and Micah. They were so warm. I cuddled down between them, letting Micah cradle me against his chest. Nathaniel curled around my back, the reverse of how we usually slept. It felt strange and safe at the same time.
After a few minutes, I opened the marks between me and Jean-Claude, and cautiously reached out across town to my vampire. In my mind, I could see that he was in his bedroom, alone. When he felt me he looked up, face expressionless but sapphire-blue eyes hopeful. "Ma petite?"
"Hi." I took a deep breath. "I... are you busy?"
"Not at all, ma petite."
"Okay. Can you promise me something?"
"Of course, ma petite. Anything."
"Never lie to me."
Jean-Claude frowned. "Ma petite, I have never lied to you, and I never will."
Deep down, I knew that, but I needed to hear him say it. I felt the tiniest bit more secure. "Then I have a question, and I need an answer. I mean, you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but if you do, then--"
"Shh," Jean-Claude said, the corners of his mouth turning up. "What is your question?"
"Do you love me?"
"Yes." No hesitation, no caveats, nothing but yes.
"Oh." I bit my lower lip. I'd thought Jean-Claude's answer might bring me some kind of peace, or give me answers, but nothing changed. "I love you too. I mean, I just wanted you to know that."
Jean-Claude reached a hand out towards me. Even though he was across town, I could feel the phantom brush of his fingers against my lips "Thank you, ma couer." My heart.
I closed my eyes and burrowed down between Micah and Nathaniel. I'd learned new things today, but strangely none of them made me feel that much better. It made a perverted kind of sense. I'd been living with a lot of these issues for longer than I'd known Micah and Nathaniel, or even Jean-Claude. There was never a quick fix like on television or in books.
If I hadn't received the ardeur, some things would still be the same. Nathaniel would still be in my life, making slow changes to his life. Jean-Claude would still be my steady boyfriend, and while I might not have been sleeping with Richard or Asher or Damian or any of the other men, they would still be around.
As for Micah... I didn't know. Was our connection because of the ardeur? Or was it something deeper, my Nimir-Ra to his Nimir-Raj?
For better or for worse, this was my life now. There was no going back, no good in thinking 'what if'. If I wanted to keep what I had, I'd have to work for it.
The thing was, did I want this?
Micah's heartbeat was loud in my ear, Nathaniel warm against my back. I hadn't closed the marks with Jean-Claude, and I could feel him drifting on the edges of my mind.
A spark in my chest warmed me, chasing away the cold. This was my life, and I wanted it.
More than that, I would fight to keep this, ardeur be damned.
--fin
The Leaving Hour
An Anita Blake fanfiction story by mhalachaiswords
Summary: A month after the events in Danse Macabre, Anita thinks about her life and her relationships.
Disclaimer: The Anita Blake universe belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. I'm only borrowing and will return all at the end of the fic.
Characters: Anita, Jean-Claude, Nathaniel, Micah
Rating: PG-13 for angst.
Word count: 6,050, complete.
Author's Note and spoilers: This arose from me trying to deal with issues from Danse Macabre, the latest Anita Blake book. As such, this story is one massive spoiler from that book.
~~~
I carefully laid my cell phone down on the seat in the jeep, watching as the glowing screen slowly faded to black. I felt bad about waking Micah, but he'd wanted to know if I was going to be home tonight.
Just one more obligation in my life, telling people where I was and what I was doing, so they wouldn't worry. I never asked him to worry, but the ardeur had seen to that.
I shook my head. I didn't want to think about this now. It wasn't late, around two in the morning, but I was exhausted. Only part of it was physical. I'd worked for a little bit tonight, two zombies, but nothing that would explain my lethargy.
In the back of my head, I knew exactly why I felt so run down, but I wasn't going to think about that. They say denial isn't just a river in Egypt, and I was aware that over the years I had developed an amazing ability to convince myself that things weren't as bad as they seemed. Even if sometimes they were worse.
The outside chill from the St. Louis winter was seeping into the car. I picked up my phone and my keys and stepped out of the car into the biting cold. Someone had salted the parking lot, so I didn't slip on the ice on the way to the back door of the Circus of the Damned.
The walk down the uneven stone stairs was marginally warmer than outside. Few people were around. This was the best time of night for the inhabitants of Jean-Claude's underground lair, and they were all out and about, doing whatever it was vampires did. I didn't run into anyone who wanted to talk.
Jean-Claude's bedroom door was closed. I pressed my palm against the wood and felt the inside of the room. No vampires, no lycanthropes, nothing.
Before I could put a lid back on my power, it slipped between my fingers and ran down the hall on little kitty-cat feet. As it moved through the Circus, faster than a thought, I knew exactly how many vampires there were in the stone hallways, felt their power and their age.
Frightened, I slammed my metaphysical shields up as fast as I could.
I didn't used to be able to do this and now I couldn't stop. My powers slipped my control more often than ever now. I;d thought that if I fed the ardeur more, I'd be safer, but it was turning out that the more power I gave it, the more it wanted.
Jean-Claude had said it was probably a temporary growing pain, and that it would settle down soon into a pattern closer to his ardeur. I hadn't bothered to remind him that I wasn't like him, that my ardeur wasn't reacting the same way that his did.
After I was released from the shifter hospital last month, I hadn't said a lot of anything to Jean-Claude.
It seemed as if no one had felt the power rush, or if they had, they weren't going to investigate. Carefully, I pushed the door to Jean-Claude's room open, then closed it firmly behind me.
The sheets on the neatly made bed were the cerulean blue of Asher's eyes, covered by a duvet wrapped in black silk. I averted my eyes as I walked past the bed. It bothered me that Jean-Claude had those sheets, and it bothered me that it bothered me. I mean, I'd told Asher everything was okay between us, right?
Blood loss has its own special pain. It was hard for me to remember around the whole impending unconsciousness, but the vague bits I did remember usually involved my entire body in pain as my veins collapsed, as my body realized that it was dying. Every other injury, burns and gunshots and knife wounds, the body knows how to handle from millions of years of evolution.
There's no going back from blood loss.
I kept going toward the bathroom. Dr. Lillian had used blood from so many lycanthropes to save my life. I'd had transfusions before, but never so much. Micah had caught me staring at myself in the mirror after I came home, looking for changes. He hadn't laughed at me, but he didn't have to. I knew how ridiculous I was being, but I couldn't stop.
I switched on the lights in Jean-Claude's bathroom and closed the door behind me. The room was glistening white and it hurt my eyes. My eyes hadn't hurt before I gained so many powers, before I almost died, before I had the blood from so many others in my veins.
I left the lights on.
The bath was large and took a long time to fill. After I stripped and pinned up my hair, I stepped into the tub and sat in the slowly rising water, pulling my knees up to my chest.
It had been a long month, since the ballet and the visiting masters came to St. Louis. Some days, it felt like forever, since I had learned that the ardeur was messing with my head and the heads of everyone I had thought I loved. Other days, like today, it was a fresh pain that made me wonder if I was ever going to be able to live through it.
This wasn't like me. I usually didn't spend so long worrying about stuff I couldn't change, but in the last month, I'd had a hard time remembering how to let things go. Things were slow at work, but I spent more time there than I had in a long time, doing paperwork and organizing things. I worked with the police as much as they needed me. Zerbrowski had told me if I didn't stop spending so much time at the station, he was going to kick me out himself. He'd been joking. I think.
Luckily, Christmas was coming, so I could spend some of the empty time in my days shopping, trying to figure out what to buy the people in my life. It was easy to buy gifts for Cherry and Zane and Gregory and Vivian and Stephen and Jason, as well as some of the other werewolves. I wasn't sure if I should buy stuff for Micah's half of the pard, or the vampires.
The water lapped at my elbows, warm against my skin, but I still felt cold.
I didn't know what to get Nathaniel or Micah. What do you get for people who are tied to you, when you can't really be sure they want to be there?
I pushed those thoughts away and reached for the soap. I wasn't going to do this. No, scratch that. I couldn't do this. It was pathetic, but I had a physical reaction akin to a panic attack when I started to wonder when they would all leave me.
I spent enough time in the tub to make my fingers wrinkly, thinking about nothing. The new cross-shaped scar on my palm was still pink against my skin. I wondered when it would fade to white, like all my other scars, and if I'd live long enough to see that. With the way my life was going these days, I wouldn't bet on it.
After my bath, I dried myself, let my hair down, and slipped into Jean-Claude's black robe. It was too large on me, making me look like a child playing dress-up. I stared at my reflection in the foggy mirror for a minute, trying to understand what they saw in me. I blinked, and in the blurred reflection I saw Belle Morte staring back at me. Heart pounding, I stepped back. The illusion was gone, and it was just me.
I left my clothes lying in a pile, taking only my gun, and made my way to Jean-Claude's bed. The floor was cold on my bare feet, but I hesitated. I didn't want to get into the bed with those ice-blue silk sheets.
I was being silly, I scolded myself. They were just sheets. Jean-Claude used different color sheets all the time. If he was using these ones, it wasn't because he wanted Asher more than he wanted me--
I stopped in the middle of the floor, horrified. Where in the hell had that thought come from?
My hand was shaking as I pushed my hair out of my face. Jean-Claude loved me. I had told Asher that we were fine. Micah and Nathaniel loved me, really, even if the ardeur had made them into different people for me to love them, feed from them.
They weren't going to leave me, and I wasn't going to die.
Angry at myself, I stormed across the room and turned off the lights. In the dark, the sheets didn't have any color to bother me.
I made my way back across the room in the pitch black and slid into bed, not bothering to get out of Jean-Claude's robe. I curled up into a ball under the covers, wishing I could feel warm again.
I breathed in deeply, taking in the faint scent of Jean-Claude's cologne from the robe and the pillows. It used to be enough to calm me, to make me feel safe. I wanted that feeling back, but how could that happen when I didn't know which feelings were mine anymore? I hadn't been able to acknowledge that I truly loved Jean-Claude until after we married the marks and I gained the ardeur. What if that love was a lie, pushed on me by my ardeur?
Finally, alone in the dark, I fell asleep.
~~~
A touch on my cheek pulled me awake. "Shh, ma petite, it is all right," Jean-Claude whispered against my hair.
"What are you doing here?" I asked groggily, blinking in the dim light. How long had I been sleeping?
"It is my bed, ma petite." Jean-Claude slid his arm around my stomach and curled up along my back. I let him cuddle against me. "Why are you here?"
I twitched my shoulder in a shrug. "I was tired."
Jean-Claude's faint breath was cold against my neck. "I am told you arrived at only two hours past midnight. You could have driven home."
It wasn't a question, so I didn't say anything.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he continued.
"No."
Jean-Claude moved his hand under the covers to touch my throat. It was a simple gesture, but it pulled me instantly, suddenly alert as his fingers brushed over the scarred skin where Asher had bitten me.
"Ma petite?"
"What time is it?" I asked hurriedly.
Jean-Claude's hand moved away from my throat. "It is minutes after dawn."
I had slept for almost five hours. So why did I feel so horrible?
It took me a few seconds for my brain to work through the rest of the meaning in Jean-Claude's words. "Wait, what? How are you here?"
"It seems that being so close to you at dawn, ma petite, allows me to stave off the inevitable death of the new day."
I sat up all the way, pulling Jean-Claude's robe tight around me. His words had been nothing but neutral, but a small ball of ice settled itself into my chest. "Glad to hear it," I said, faintly surprised at the brittleness in my voice. "You can leave now."
Jean-Claude lay still, staring up at me. "What do you mean, ma petite?"
The silk of Jean-Claude's robe was rough under my clenched fingers. "You don't need to stay." As I spoke, I moved off the bed to the ice-cold floor. Whatever warmth had seeped into my skin while I slept was now gone.
"Where else would I go?"
I didn't answer him until after I had retrieved my wrinkled clothes from the bathroom. "There has to be a reason you came in here this morning." I turned away from him as I slid the robe off my shoulders.
"Cannot my reason be simply that I wanted to spend some time in your presence?" Jean-Claude asked. I wasn't sure if not seeing his face as he spoke made things easier or not. "You have not sought out my company in recent weeks. I had hoped this was a sign you wanted to see me. I know I have wanted to see you."
My hair swung down, blocking my face, as I shimmied into my pants. "I can't see why," I muttered. Even though my voice was barely audible, vampire hearing would pick up my words.
Jean-Claude sighed, his sorrow brushing over my skin like a hand. I slammed up my mental shielding instantly, pushing Jean-Claude out of my head. I'd had enough of Jean-Claude's interference, of being at the Circus, of my life. I pulled on the rest of my clothes in a hurry, wondering what the hell I was doing here, what answers I'd been trying to find.
"Ma petite, I wish you could love and value yourself the way that we do," Jean-Claude's voice floated at me in the dim light.
My fingers stilled on my gun, my brain twisting Jean-Claude's words around. Maybe-- No. I made sure the safety was on the gun, action born out of habit, and shoved the Browning into my shoulder rig. I grabbed my jacket and walked towards the door.
"Anita, wait."
I stopped in the doorway. I didn't want to look back, but Jean-Claude always had a reason when he used my full name. Normally it was anger, but today... today I didn't know what the hell was going on.
Jean-Claude knelt in his bed, holding the cerulean blue sheets up to his waist. He had one hand on the wooden post of the bed frame, the muscles in his arm flexed. He looked like temptation and sex, and I wanted nothing more than to be far, far away.
"Would you care to have dinner with me tomorrow night?" Jean-Claude asked wistfully.
I took a deep breath and turned away. "I should go," I said as I closed the door behind me.
~~~
I drove west until a little warning light came on, telling me that I almost out of gas. I pulled into the next gas station, near a little strip mall just off the freeway. There was a Denny's down the street, and the picture in the window of pancakes made my stomach grumble. The sun was almost directly overhead and I hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon.
No one paid me any mind as I took a booth near the window, facing the door. The waitress brought me coffee and dropped a sticky menu on the tabletop. I ordered at random, and the waitress left me to my coffee.
The coffee was horrible, but at least it was warm. I sipped at my cup, feeling the liquid start to warm me on the inside.
Without having to pay attention to the road or anything, my mind pulled itself out of the freeway-enforced haze I'd been in for hours. Unfortunately, Jean-Claude's words were too fresh in my mind to ignore, like I'd been doing with everything else.
Maybe Jean-Claude was right. Maybe the reason I couldn't let this go, couldn't shrug off the idea that it was the ardeur that everyone loved and not me, was that I was having a hard time imagining why anyone could love me these days. What was there about me to love?
I set my coffee cup down and stared out the window. The December sun was harsh, bright through the dusty window.
I tried to protect everyone, but that was usually with pain and violence. Not much to love there. What else was there? It couldn't be my sparkling conversational skills. I didn't have any hobbies, couldn't cook, hated cleaning.
There was one thing that I supposed the guys could get on side with, but the idea that the men in my life were only into the hardcore group sex as the main reason to stick around me was just so fucking depressing that I buried my face in my hands.
There had to be a reason. Because if there wasn't a reason, then it was all about the ardeur, and that meant it wasn't real. That they stayed for an illusion, because of metaphysical power tricks, and not because of me.
The waitress brought my food and I stared at it, unseeing. It took me a minute to realize that I'd ordered pancakes covered in blackberries.
I had to force myself to eat. Every mouthful tasted like ashes on my tongue.
~~~
Nathaniel was watching television in the living room when I got home. He looked up as I came into the room. "Hi," he said softly.
"Hi." I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear as I joined him on the couch. "What are you watching?"
"The Weather Channel." Nathaniel turned lavender eyes to me. "They're talking about mudslides."
"Fun." I pulled my legs up to my chest. The heater hadn't been working properly in my car on the drive back, and I was freezing. "How are you?"
"Fine." Nathaniel held out the remote control. "Do you want to watch something else?"
"No, it's okay." I rested my chin on my knees and watched the screen for a while.
Nathaniel waited until the show changed, into weather forecasts in the Pacific Northwest, to say, "You stayed at the Circus last night?"
I didn't answer. He most likely knew where I'd been, Micah would have told him.
"Anita? Is something wrong?" He touched my hand, his skin so hot I jerked away. "Anita?"
I shifted away from him on the couch. "Nothing's wrong," I whispered.
Nathaniel hit the mute button on the remote, plunging the house into silence. He sat up and stared at me, his long hair spilling over his shoulder. I wanted nothing more than to plunge my fingers into that hair, to feel it sliding over my body like vanilla silk. But it wasn't real, what Nathaniel felt for me. It wasn't real.
"You can tell me anything you want," Nathaniel said into the stillness.
"I know," I said. I hugged my knees to my chest, my belt buckle digging into my stomach. It hurt, but it wasn't enough.
I couldn't talk to Nathaniel. I'd spent so long trying to make him independent, before I finally realized that I wanted him around. He wanted to be here, I'd thought, but I knew now that it was the ardeur that kept him in my life. How could I talk to him, confide in him, when I knew it wasn't real?
"Did something happen?" Nathaniel asked gently. "Last night? At the Circus? Or at work?"
I shook my head. "Nothing happened."
Nathaniel slid off the couch to the ground. He knelt back on his heels in front of me, not touching. I looked at him, so close, and wanted to cry.
"I don't know what's real anymore," I whispered. The words spilled out of my mouth before I could stop them.
"What's not real?" Nathaniel whispered back. He went up on to his knees.
Digging my fingers into my legs to keep from crying, I shrugged.
"Is this about Asher?"
Startled, I frowned at Nathaniel. "Is what about Asher?"
"Never mind." Nathaniel licked his lips nervously. "Can you tell me about it? Please? I want to help."
It took me a few minutes to speak abound the lump in my throat. "It's just..." I cleared my throat and tried again. "I don't know who I am anymore. With everyone... I see you all reacting to me and I don't know who that woman is." Nathaniel opened his mouth to respond, but I hurried on. If I didn't finish, I knew I'd never be able to say this to anyone. "What if the ardeur is taking away all that I am, until there's nothing left that's me?"
"No, no," Nathaniel said, horrified. "It's not taking you away, it's not changing you! You're still you, that's not going to change."
The front door closed, a quiet sound, but still enough to jerk me to my feet. I wiped my cheeks just as Micah walked into the room. "What's going on?" he demanded as he shed his jacket.
"Nothing," I said. "Do you want some coffee? I think I want some coffee."
"No, I don't want--" Micah broke off mid-sentence. "What's happening?"
"Nothing," I said with a warning glare at Nathaniel. "Nothing's happened."
"Nothing," Micah repeated. "You're upset because of nothing."
"I'm not upset!" I exclaimed.
Micah took a step forward. "Just like you haven't been lying awake for hours at night, pretending you're asleep? Or that you've lost five pounds in a month because you're not eating enough?"
My heart pounded in my throat. I thought they hadn't noticed my insomnia, and if my clothes hadn't been fitting right... I recovered quickly enough by swinging fully into anger. "Have you been keeping tabs on me?"
"Tabs?" Micah looked stunned, but only for a moment. "Anita, I live with you, we sleep in the same bed almost every night, how the hell am I not going to notice what's going on?"
"Nothing is going on!" I exclaimed. Behind Micah, Nathaniel knelt in a ball on the floor, making himself as small as possible.
Micah put his hands on his hips, trying to control his temper. "I have been trying, Anita, everything you ask. I've been keeping my mouth shut, in case you could work through this, but I don't know how much more of this I can take!"
My heart almost stopped. No, he couldn't be leaving, he couldn't be doing this. But hadn't I been thinking about this? About how I couldn't think of a reason for any of them to stay with me?
I would not cry. If he wanted to leave, I would not let him see me cry. I pulled myself together, chin held high, and said, "Fine. You know where the door is."
Micah blinked at me. "What?"
"No need to drag this out into a scene," I said. "Just go."
Nathaniel slowly uncurled himself and stood up. "Anita, Micah isn't leaving you," he said quietly.
Micah's mouth dropped open. "Leaving? Why the hell do you think I'm leaving? Why don't you trust me?" He raked his hands through his curly hair. "What else can I do?"
I couldn't meet his eyes. I didn't know what to do. Everything in my head was jumbled up and so ugly.
"I've done everything you've asked," Micah continued, relentless. "I don't push you, I don't tell you when I think you're about to crash, when I think you're driving yourself too hard--"
"Hey, I never asked you to do that!" I burst out. My fingernails were digging into my arms so hard that I knew I would have bruises, but it was the only way I had to keep from falling apart.
"You don't have to ask, Anita, I do it because I love you!"
"No, you don't!" The words were out of my mouth before I had a chance to think. Micah couldn't have looked more shocked if I'd pulled out my gun and shot him. I couldn't take the words back now; I could only go on, even if saying these things felt like dying. "None of you do, it's the ardeur that did this. Once you realize--"
"Realize what?" Micah interrupted. He reached for me, but I backed up out of reach.
I took a breath. "Once you realize that you've been mind-fucked by something like vampire powers, you'll have to leave," I said, sounding perfectly reasonable. "You can't stay."
Micah stared at me. When he didn't speak, my heart sank even lower. He couldn't even argue with me on what I'd said.
Nathaniel shuffled over to my side. He laid a hand on my arm, and even though I'd watched him do it, the physical contact was such a visceral shock that I jerked away.
"I'm not leaving," Nathaniel said. He leaned against the wall, such a picture of innocence and home that I wanted to cry. "I fell in love with you the first time I met you. You saved my life and didn't ask a single thing of me in return. You were the first person in my life since Nicky that took care of me because you wanted to, not because of what you could take from me."
I pressed my back against the wall, wishing I could take this day back, go back to that gas station in the middle of the state, and change it so I'd just kept driving west.
"Micah's not leaving, either," Nathaniel continued. "It's not the ardeur that makes him stay, he knows what it's like when he's being mind-fucked, and this isn't it."
I chanced a glance up at Nathaniel. "How... how do you know that?"
"We talked about it." There was nothing on Nathaniel's face to indicate that this was a joke, but I still didn't know how to react.
I ducked my head. I couldn't deal with this, with any of this, so I picked the most inconsequential thing. "You guys talk about me?"
Nathaniel nodded and moved closer. This time, I let him touch my arm. "You're an incredibly important part of our lives, Anita, you have to know that."
I stared at Nathaniel's hand, at his thumb rubbing soft circles on my skin. "Jean-Claude said..." I swallowed hard, past the lump in my throat. "He said that I don't love or value myself."
Micah came up on my other side, leaning against the wall but not touching. Not yet. "He was wrong, Anita," Micah said quietly. "I know people who don't love themselves. I've seen the destruction that they bring on everything around them. You're so different from that, in every way. You can't care about others unless you care about yourself."
Nathaniel gently squeezed my arm. "Look at all the good you do, Anita. The pard, the vampires, the werewolves, even with the police."
I shook my head. "Jean-Claude--"
"What did Jean-Claude say to you?" Micah asked. "Was that exactly what he said?"
I hesitated, then shook my head. "He... um, he said that he wished I could love and value myself like he did."
Micah touched my shoulder "Anita, that's very different from what you said before. That's not saying that you don't love yourself at all. He meant that he loves you so much and he wants you to be happy."
"But what if the only reason Jean-Claude loves me is the ardeur?" I wanted to pull away from Micah, but he and Nathaniel had me sandwiched effectively between them. "Or else some kind of power thing, or any number of reasons that aren't me?"
Nathaniel moved even closer and rubbed his cheek against mine. "That's not it at all," he murmured. "Jean-Claude loves you."
"You don't know that." Damn it, there were tears in my voice.
"I do know that." Nathaniel's arms went around me in an embrace. It felt safe. "The reason I know that Jean-Claude loves you is because deep down, you know that Jean-Claude loves you."
I closed my eyes. Everything was so messed up and I didn't know what to think, or how to feel. Everything had been messed up for a long time. If I wanted to be honest with myself, it wasn't the revelations last month that started this. This had been building since June, when Micah moved in and I started feeding the ardeur off Nathaniel. I'd just been ignoring the building problems, but they hadn't gone away.
"Anita?" Micah's voice made me open my eyes. "Do you want to leave?"
I moved back so I could focus on his face. "What are you talking about?"
"Do you want to leave?" Micah pressed. He was so serious. "You keep talking about the rest of us leaving, but what about you?"
I shrugged out of Nathaniel's embrace and backed away from both of them. "Why would I leave? What brought this on?"
Micah gave me a wry, bitter smile. "You've been worrying that we'll leave, but did you ever think that we might worry the same thing?"
My stomach clenched painfully at the thought of leaving this house, this life I'd built with Micah and Nathaniel and Jean-Claude, even if it was built on a web of lies. I shook my head so hard my hair flew in my face. "I'm not leaving, I don't-- I don't want to leave."
Micah followed me into the center of the room. "That's exactly how we feel," he told me.
I shook my head again. "But it's not the same," I argued. Panic was building in my chest again, frantic. "Everyone leaves, and there's never anything I can do to stop it."
"Anita, I don't know what you mean," Micah said.
I turned on my heel and walked over to the large window. The afternoon sun glinted off the pristine snow that covered the yard and the bare trees. The sun was bright enough to make my eyes water. "Everyone always leaves me," I said in a small voice. "My fiance in college, Richard, my mom. One day they're just gone." I touched the glass with my fingertips. The window looked strong, but with the smallest amount of pressure in just the right place, it would shatter into a million pieces. "You know what they say about all your failed relationships. They always have one common factor."
"Anita, your mother died," Micah said. He sounded confused, which I supposed I couldn't blame him for. His mother wasn't dead; he'd grown up with two parents who wanted and loved him. He didn't appear in all the blond-haired, blue-eyed family pictures like some little dark mistake.
Hands touched my waist, then slid around to hug me from behind. Nathaniel rested his cheek on my shoulder. It was calming and I didn't want it to be. "My mom left us too," he said. My hands drifted down to cover his. "I don't know about forever, Anita, or how long we'll live, but I can't think of a single reason that I'd ever want to leave. You gave me back hope, and no one will ever take that away from me."
I sniffled as I turned my head. "Even if I gain fifty pounds and take up llama farming?"
Nathaniel smiled at me bumping his nose against my cheek. "I like llamas." The almost-happy expression faded from his face. "Would you do me a favor?"
I looked at him suspiciously. "What?"
"Talk to someone?"
"No."
"Anita--"
"No," I said again. "Who can I talk to about this? I can't talk to a psychiatrist, or a therapist, or anyone. Even if it's under confidentiality, there's still a danger that they'll tell someone, and that could put us all in danger, all of Jean-Claude's vampires and you and the werewolves--"
"I meant someone you trust," Nathaniel interrupted gently. "I meant Jean-Claude."
I tensed immediately. "No."
Nathaniel hugged me tighter. "Anita, he's loved you forever. He knows you so well, and he knows the most about the ardeur."
I twisted away from Nathaniel, putting my back against the window. Micah was standing in the middle of the room, watching us
"I'm not going to talk to Jean-Claude," I said. I was so tense that my shoulders and neck hurt. "What if I'm right? What if the only reason he loves is because of the ardeur?"
"Then he'll still love you, Anita, that's not going to change." Nathaniel pushed his hair behind his shoulder. "If you can't talk to me or Micah, please talk to Jean-Claude, to someone."
I shook my head.
Micah cleared his throat. "Anita, even if the ardeur never happened, you still would have saved me and my whole pard from Chimera." He walked around the couch, his hands in his jeans pockets. "You'd still be my friend, even if we never became lovers. With the ardeur, you're still you, and I love you."
I closed my eyes. I wanted desperately to believe him, and Nathaniel. I wanted to believe that they'd love me regardless, but something in me still held back. I couldn't let these fears go. I wanted to cling to the idea that Micah and Nathaniel might be right, that they really did love me.
I wanted to believe it, but I didn't know how.
Nathaniel came over to me and slipped his hand into mine. I let him tug me over to the couch and sit me down between him and Micah. They were so warm. I cuddled down between them, letting Micah cradle me against his chest. Nathaniel curled around my back, the reverse of how we usually slept. It felt strange and safe at the same time.
After a few minutes, I opened the marks between me and Jean-Claude, and cautiously reached out across town to my vampire. In my mind, I could see that he was in his bedroom, alone. When he felt me he looked up, face expressionless but sapphire-blue eyes hopeful. "Ma petite?"
"Hi." I took a deep breath. "I... are you busy?"
"Not at all, ma petite."
"Okay. Can you promise me something?"
"Of course, ma petite. Anything."
"Never lie to me."
Jean-Claude frowned. "Ma petite, I have never lied to you, and I never will."
Deep down, I knew that, but I needed to hear him say it. I felt the tiniest bit more secure. "Then I have a question, and I need an answer. I mean, you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but if you do, then--"
"Shh," Jean-Claude said, the corners of his mouth turning up. "What is your question?"
"Do you love me?"
"Yes." No hesitation, no caveats, nothing but yes.
"Oh." I bit my lower lip. I'd thought Jean-Claude's answer might bring me some kind of peace, or give me answers, but nothing changed. "I love you too. I mean, I just wanted you to know that."
Jean-Claude reached a hand out towards me. Even though he was across town, I could feel the phantom brush of his fingers against my lips "Thank you, ma couer." My heart.
I closed my eyes and burrowed down between Micah and Nathaniel. I'd learned new things today, but strangely none of them made me feel that much better. It made a perverted kind of sense. I'd been living with a lot of these issues for longer than I'd known Micah and Nathaniel, or even Jean-Claude. There was never a quick fix like on television or in books.
If I hadn't received the ardeur, some things would still be the same. Nathaniel would still be in my life, making slow changes to his life. Jean-Claude would still be my steady boyfriend, and while I might not have been sleeping with Richard or Asher or Damian or any of the other men, they would still be around.
As for Micah... I didn't know. Was our connection because of the ardeur? Or was it something deeper, my Nimir-Ra to his Nimir-Raj?
For better or for worse, this was my life now. There was no going back, no good in thinking 'what if'. If I wanted to keep what I had, I'd have to work for it.
The thing was, did I want this?
Micah's heartbeat was loud in my ear, Nathaniel warm against my back. I hadn't closed the marks with Jean-Claude, and I could feel him drifting on the edges of my mind.
A spark in my chest warmed me, chasing away the cold. This was my life, and I wanted it.
More than that, I would fight to keep this, ardeur be damned.
--fin