This is the official last chapter. The Afterword will bring closure to the story and it will come in a few when I am done with it.
Once upon a time the author of this story wrote something in author notes in the end of chapter 6. Just keep that in mind. :D
Stay
tuned for the Afterword people! Again thank you guys for everything!
Making love…
(gunshot)
What did I get myself into…
(gunshot)
I have to do something about this… I've been putting it in the back of my mind for too long.
(gunshot)
He can read my mind, why make it so goddamn hard… damn him.
(gunshot)
I feel like I can't look at him… no, I didn't get drunk again… even worse…
His heavy breaths are like music to my ears. Surprisingly the squeaking of the bed has lost its humor. My eyes battle between closing or opening; closing them, and feel the delicious uncertainty of what his next move or caress will be, or opening them, and feel my insides flutter as my eyes rest on his parted lips, his half lidded eyes that once in a while roll back as I internally stimulate him… taking advantage of this time when his face softly contorts in something other than smirks and burlesque expressions. Yes, finding pleasure in his pleasure…
I decide to open them. Feeling his breath against my face is like a little… exclusiveness I get from him, since he doesn't need to breathe normally. My hand reaches for his face, my fingers traveling to his lips, entering his mouth, letting him taste drops of my blood. Once it touches his tongue, his movements become slower but deeper, eyes again roll back for a few seconds as his brow furrows slightly. His upper body falls closer to mine, resting on his forearms, eyes still lost.
He has inner battles too at times like this; I can feel his hands on me and then leaving me to clutch strongly at the sheets under me, sometimes his nails thinning the cloth almost ripping it, not wanting to hurt me. Ambivalences, ambivalences…
His eyes again focus and meet mine. I don't close them this time after a while or look at his lips or anywhere else. And I don't look away. And he doesn't look away. And I realize I haven't looked at him like this before. My fingers move away from his lips and travel to the back of his neck into his hair, and then across his shoulders. I bury my face on the curve of his neck and try to understand this thing I am feeling in my stomach… and the rest of my body, as he looked back at me. Yes, I am hiding. I am hiding my eyes from his. I don't know why. Or maybe I do, I can't say. I feel his grinding, but the only thing in my mind is…
What did I get myself into with him…
Next thing I feel is his fingers buried into my hair on the back of my head, bringing me away from his shoulder. Again he's looking at me this way. I try to look back but not for long. My eyes travel down to his lips, his eyes still pulling mine to his. I don't know why I can't do it. There's something heavy in my chest not letting me. I feel as if I do… I might cry. His movements stop gradually, almost unnoticeably. Or maybe I'm just so overwhelmed with what I am feeling that I don't notice. No expression on his face. Mine is a sea of them. After trying to decide what mask I should wear right now… I give up with a sigh, my head thrown back a bit.
"I'm sorry…" I whisper almost inaudibly.
He just looked back at me, his face not changing.
Silence.
"You want me to stop but do not want me away… and again do…" he whispered.
No, it's not about not being in the mood. I don't know what the hell is happening to me.
"I'm sorry…" I whispered again. I didn't know what else to say.
Silence. He looked at me tilting his head a bit.
"It is coming to you…" again his whisper.
I frowned.
"What… is?"
"You will see…"
(gunshot)
What the hell is happening to me… I wish I had a clue.
(click)
Ok, not another magazine, I have to control myself.
I'll walk around… I wonder were Seras is…
--
"Captain!" I said in a mocking tone as I saw Pip sitting at his balcony, having a beer and a cig by himself, staring forward. Oh man, his guitar. He better be drunk or else he sounds awful.
"Officer!" He said in a mocking tone too. "… what's up?"
"Nothing... nothing... bored out of my mind too..."
"So I see..." He turned to me as I jumped on the balcony too. "Cig and beer?"
"Please and please" He lit mine and opened my beer. "… such a gentleman..."
"Zat I am... when I feel like eet..."
Chuckles.
"I bet..." I gulped down some beer. "... thought you were with Seras..."
"Nah..." He took a long drag from his cig. "I try not to spoil her... let her miss me..."
"Riiight..."
"Really."
"I do believe you, man... you seem like that type."
"Type?..."
Silence.
"Question..."
"Oui?"
"How... do you see Seras? I mean, do you really like her? Or is it just goofing around?"
He gave me a playful glare. "You're her spy or somezeeng?"
"No, it's 100 personal interest..."
"Hmm... she's a very nice girl. A good girl. Even I feel bad about hurting a girl like zat..."
"Hmm... would you say you like her?"
"Of course I do."
"I mean.. like-like… feel something for her."
Silence.
"I zeenk so..."
"And have you considered the fact that she's a vampire in all this?"
"Of course I do... it's not somezeeng I can forget... zere's the eyes, ze teeth and ze strength... a girl stronger zan me, it's weird sometimes..."
"Hmm..."
"Why?"
"And have you thought about--what if you want to be with her, like have a steady relationship or something? What about the whole immortality thing, the fact that she will stay like this forever, looking like this--."
"Whoa! Let's not get zat far, luv... don't scare me..."
"Ok…" Why am I blushing?
"Hmm..." He eyed me carefully and jumped off the balcony. "I zink someone has a crush on a vampireee." He sing-songed, strumming his guitar.
"Huh?"
He chuckled knowingly.
"Damn it... the police girl told you..."
"Told me?... told me what?" He said with a huge wicked smile.
I scoffed.
He came beside me and put his arm around my shoulders, signaling somewhere with his beer.
"I have an amazeeng view..." I looked at what he was signaling.
He could see the balcony of my barracks and my hallway.
Of course.
He must have been witness to some talks and discussions… and slaps.
"Crap... who else saw...?"
"Nah... no one comes here... except your blonde ex-boyfriend but I don't zink he's seen much… plus it would be all around ze place any road..." He had a big gulp of his beer. "… you two have an... interesting relationship... and I have to say you have a big set of bollocks to hit him like zat..."
So he knew all along.
"We don't have a relationship."
"... I have seen zeengs that enter zat category..."
"Great, I have another stalker--."
"I can't see your room, luv... dunno what's happening zere... nor I care..."
"What things... " I was curious.
"Fights... very long talks, discussions... you smiling, him smiling sharing a cig... both frustrated, zeengs like zat... I didn't have to see any action between you two to know somezeeng was up..." He lit another cig.
Silence.
"It's not a crush, by the way..."
"You sure, girl?"
Silence. Hey I'm trying to lie here.
"Hm..." He exhaled. " … just be careful is all I say... if you give one, anyways..."
"He's not dangerous in the way people think--."
"I don't mean zat, luv..." Long puff. "... he's an alright bloke, I have talked to him before... lots of times, even traveled with him all the way to Brazil on a mission ... zere is more zan immortality and ze blood drinking and all zat between you and him... it might look hunky-dory, but I bet it's too much of a roller coaster for humans..."
Silence.
"You know what I'm talking about, oui?"
"Yeah… he's-he's… not your sweet boy next door… he's been through so much… I think you're right..."
"Just an opinion... nozeeng written on blood..."
He again strummed his guitar after jumping on the balcony to sit. He began playing a melody, a sweet one. Music has such an impact on me.
"I could write a song weez what I have seen… about you two…"
"Oh please…"
"Funny how you had all of us zinking zat it was just… how can I say it nicely…"
I frowned at him. "… oui… just post-métier conversations…"
"Huh?" I smiled.
More playing. "That's how I will call ze song…" Soft playing. "Post-métier conversations…"
I laughed silently. He is so random when he wants to be.
"I don't think you are using that word the right way, Frenchie…"
"Girl, I'm ze French one here, I should know, ok?"
More laughing. Seras is so goddamn lucky. He's such a sweetheart.
I jumped off the balcony and holding his head from behind I brought him closer to mine and kissed him on the cheek. He's French, he won't think any of it.
"Thanks… you're cooler than you look."
"I get zat a lot..."
"Riiiight..." I smiled thinking about so many things that have exploded in my face all around this place. "… I guess nothing is what it seems… it is all a matter of perception..."
"Sleep tight, girl… don't let the bats shit on you in your sleep."
"You are so vulgar when you want to be too…" He chuckled. "I'm going to go--hey you want a hemp bracelet?"
"A whata?"
"Come I'll show you..." I pulled him to my room, well more like dragged.
Who knew the mercenary could be insightful...
It is strange how, in the dark, things morph to something else.
Since I was a little girl, I always liked the dark. I loved to see how my mind would decompose shapes and turn them into something else. My friends were always scared of this; they saw chairs turn into monsters and closets turn into gates of hell. To me it was always beautiful. I guess I have always been strange.
That same thing happens to people, if one is kept in the dark.
I looked at the vampire beside me, his eyes closed, still as a… dead body I should say. Well, he doesn't breathe. But it is dark, or as dark as I can manage with my less than perfect blinds. So it is something I can ignore. In every other way, he looks just like a regular guy, about 27 years old, sleeping beside me after a night of passionate sex.
I turned on my side, away from him and stared at the wall. Walls don't really change. They always remain walls, no matter how dark.
I wonder what is it that's happening to me. I can't feel something for him. How can I? It makes no sense. How long has this been in me and I haven't noticed it? Is something really growing here? Is it because he confessed he can love? But this was something I already knew.
That question… the one that was eating me inside.
Could he ever love me like he loves her?
I felt him move. I guess he is stirring in his sleep. He does. Something that surprised me the first time I saw it. But then I felt his body spooning with mine, his arm coming around my body at the height of my waist. He doesn't do this. At least, not with me.
"Let's talk about love…" He whispered, almost mocking nostalgia, his lips landing close to my ear.
"Hm?"
"Let's talk about love." His tone now almost playful.
Silence.
"Does it surprise you?" He asked.
"What…"
"A monster… speaking about love…"
"… yeah…"
"Why, milady?" Silence. "Are humans the only ones who can experience love?" His tone was burlesque.
"… That's what we believe…"
"How can you claim possession of something that you cannot even define?"
"How can language, a creation of ours which carries every fundamental flaw we have, define something like love? It doesn't mean we can't feel it or exclusively feel it. Thought and soul are not the same, vampire…"
He chuckled approvingly. "'How can something that is dead experience something like love?'... Is this it?"
"You are not dead. Undead is different than dead."
"I am glad you know the difference…" Silence. "Why then… is it so hard to believe a vampire can love?"
"You have implied many times you do not bother with emotions or feelings."
"And love is a feeling?" He asked rhetorically.
Silence.
"What is love then… you seem to know…" I asked him a bit testy.
"I cannot tell you what love is… but I have very clear what it is not…"
"Tell me then."
Silence.
"Feelings, as you know very well, are as nonexistent and flawed as language is. But humans tend to place love in this category." Silence. "Is love as volatile? I think not. Feelings change all the time. I can make it change with a remark or a simple action…" He poked my side and I slapped his arm. "… it is quite fun…"
"Ok, I got it…"
He chuckled.
"I do not bother with feelings, not because I am undead. It is experience that has let me to the conclusion that feelings are nothing but creations of ours. We have them, if we choose to."
"… I agree…"
"You know this… it took you less than me to realize this same thing, draga mea…" Silence. "But love is not a feeling… as unromantic as it may sound." More silence. "Could I ever love you as I love her, you ask." He said and I felt my face red. I can't get used to this ability of his. "The answer depends not on me… as surprising as it sounds." Silence. Now I'm confused. "Something for me is awakening inside of you, you say. Feelings for a vampire. Love perhaps?"
"I'm not sure." Silence. "Maybe the potential to—I don't know…" I said stuttering a bit.
"Hm."
Silence.
"You don't sound convinced." I said with a frown.
"I am not."
"How can you know what I feel or not feel? You read thoughts, but not--."
"Hearts? Milady, such an old-wives tale; still thinking it is your heart doing this? Leave the poor thing alone; it has enough problems with pumping blood and creating a blood flow."
I was going to say something but stopped. I did get his point.
Silence.
"No, I cannot love you like I love her."
Silence. Rejection is a bitch. I swallowed hard. So he was using me then?
"Is it because you've known her for so long?"
"How can that be a reason, milady?"
"You have been through more things with her; a bond has been developed--."
"Time is also as unreal as language and feelings; another human creation. It does not exist. It is relative, some say, which only proves it doesn't mean anything."
Silence.
"Could you? If she wasn't in the picture?" my voice is sounding smaller by the minute.
"It has nothing to do with her either."
Silence. I'm confused again.
"I cannot love someone who doesn't see me as what I am."
I frowned.
"What do you mean? I know what you are—." I argued.
"You accept me as what I am… you know I am a vampire. But you do not see me as this."
"I don't understand."
Silence.
"I am what you would like to be." He said softer into my ear, as if making sure I understood. "I represent power… everything you would like to achieve; you believe I am smart, strong, experienced, intelligent, invincible… These are things you would like to become. And you see them personified in me." Silence. "You idolize me, being close to me makes you feel closer to these traits. And of course, makes you feel better about yourself… as I have chosen you to share my bed, time and thoughts with."
Silence. My inner self is not getting defensive as it always gets when I feel threatened or misjudged. I can't believe this…
"It can't be this vain…" I said with a deeper frown.
"Why?"
"What about my concern for you…"
"Oh, I never said you couldn't feel concern for me. I never said you didn't feel something for me… but it is not that kind of thing you believe it to be…"
Silence.
"I was using you." I whispered; it felt so horrible.
"Some might see it that way…" Long silence. "...still … you would have made a wonderful vampire."
I smiled. It was a compliment to me.
Silence.
"Is this your only reason?"
"Yes, my dear."
"How can you decide this? Doesn't it just happen... I mean, love?
Silence. He chuckled.
"I have only lived long enough to know better..." Silence. "It is almost… a decision of mine, yes. A decision that at certain times I hesitated to follow... "
Silence.
"Could you have been able to love more than one then? I mean if I did see you as--."
Silence. I trailed off; I didn't need to explain it to him.
"As aware and awakened as your pretty little mind is, there are things you cannot understand now."
Very long silence. I can't believe I wasn't aware of this. I feel so bad. I can't believe I lost control of me like this and didn't see what was really happening.
"Ari…" I closed my eyes and smiled unconsciously almost. I loved the way he sometimes whispered my name with no reason. "My dear Ari… there is so much you don't see yet… so much you still need to learn… but you are doing well, very well…" I felt his chest pressing stronger against me, his body coming a bit higher over my side almost. "… the strengths you posses are not the ones you see. It takes a while to see in between the lines of your reality because you have woven them with threads of what you already are… you just, don't see it yet…" Silence. "… don't look beyond the fantastic structure… look into it… it is even more… marvelous…" Silence. "We could have had so much fun together…" He whispered, a hint of playfulness and sadness. I turned my head to look at him. No, it wasn't an indecent proposal; not one that would come from a lover. It was even more intimate… but more chaste. One word came to my head.
Accomplice.
I let out a small chuckle.
"Go to her… you've made her jealous enough." I joked. I had seen them together. She couldn't have a doubt. No matter what he did. I felt his hand pinching my chin softly, his fingers running through my hair as he moved away and off the bed.
He appeared completely dressed in front of my bed, walking toward the door. I didn't feel anything too bad as he walked away from me. Actually, I felt a bit lighter; as weird as it may sound.
"Can I ask something of you?" He asked, turning his body sideways and facing me.
"Sure." I sat up covering my body with the comforter.
Silence.
"Never forget what you are in battle. There is nothing I can do anymore if you fall."
"Ok." I wasn't expecting something like this. "Can we still go around scaring people?"
"Of course." He said with a smile. Yes, a smile. "I owe you a lesson on cleaning guns too."
"Right." I remembered.
And then he disappeared.
I smiled.
No, I didn't hear steps down the hallway. Nor the door slowly closing, or a lightness in the air because of his departure. Nothing to dramatically announce the closure of this... whatever it was.
I guess in Alucard language this means 'take care, don't get killed, everything is back to how it was before.' It will take me some time to adjust. But I think I can manage. Or at least try to.
If only I had asked the damn question before things escalated...
... nah, never mind.
I turned around, my nose buried in the pillow. I inhaled. Hm, I'll postpone cleaning my sheets to a few more days.
I turned around, grunting, not wanting to wake up. What had happened hours ago was still fresh in my mind and I wished to stay in bed and think about it. I already missed him. As I rolled around the bed some more I felt… the noise of paper wrinkling under my shoulder. I propped my body up with my forearms and brought the paper closer to my line of vision.
A strange handwriting. Hm. I wonder what this is…
"My dear Ari:
This is something that flowed out of me in one of those so called nights in which for a few moments, I forgot about decisions and reason when it came to the thought of you. If you read it or not it makes no difference; for my own benefit, I want you to have it. It is my own concept… of closure."
I gulped. My heart was in my throat. I didn't know what to expect. I was afraid to read but I had to do it. I sighed.
It had a date; the day of the 'illusion'… that horrible mission.
"… Centuries have passed since the last time I believed in men, in life and in faith…
In translucid thoughts of eternity, where passion makes no place for reason or poetry, I waited; waited for the day she would come.
The last of them… the one that remained faceless…
My body mutilated by reality still takes comfort in the unconscious consciousness of my soul; in the remembrance of that space in time when both life and unlife stopped; when I finally saw your face, the one that was once changing and shapeless in my dreams, now outlining perfect and tangible smiles...
That day continues to dilute past memories of death and war and betrayal; even those that go as far back as when I relied in breath to exist...
… such is the power your mere existence holds...
My brown eyed lady; knowing you exist outside of my thoughts and that future full of faces that has haunted me for decades, makes me fathom, that in this world you not only represent hope to a damned soul that refuses to live, but also to a species that fears their own created idols. This is why I am filled with awe at your unawareness at how your apparition is encompassed by forms of light that disperse my own darkness...
Light I once considered extinguishing succumbing to my own selfishness...
... a light I felt almost extinguished tonight...
And on this night, draga mea, I remembered what fear is; and that your death is not the only thing I am afraid of anymore, but mine if I ever see indifference in your eyes, which I know are not fallacious fears... and why my decision is what it is...
But right now, to the rabid ocean my despondent thoughts; I don't want to think but to continue to feel, because with time you seem closer to me. And for your essence to come with me into the darkness, I would give my life... if I had one...
... again, blinded by selfishness, I am guilty, yes, since I do not know selflessness...
In a fraction of time, blood contracts in my chest, trying to comprehend this 'thing' I demand from you but you cannot give... nevertheless I continue to seek you; nothing will prohibit this happiness to a cursed creature like me.
So I will continue to share cigarettes and politics and maybe that long forgotten God I once believed in, with you; even if to only thank Him for your presence... since this is the only thing I can offer..."
My teary eyes were blurring the last lines of the paper. As those tears I was holding back finally ran down my face, I could finally see that those last lines were written in a different ink... the same ink used to write the very first introductory paragraph, which made me think it was added later...
"... with the relativity that the word encases, I love you my dear Ari... in much more than one way..."
I sniffled heavily and smiled at this.
Always the drama, damn corpse, I thought; and at the end, just throwing it in your face nice and straight.
Damn him... bringing his brides back, the dog... but still pussy whipped.
I couldn't stop smiling.
I think those sheets will stay where they are for longer than I thought.
So I guess this is… closure.
Thank you guys so much... you guys rock, this was going to be 13 chappys and LOOK IT"S A GODDAMN NOVEL! I copied it to a word document and its over 200 pages! Goddamn! This was supposed to be a one shot to start with! Thanks always for the support…
Stay tuned for the afterword! Good and bad cookies are very welcome! (cookies are reviews, I've gotten people asking me to stop eating or I'll just explode… :D)
I know, I know, weird ending… well, people who know me know I like weird stuff.