~1873~
It was a night during the second week of January, the year now 1873, when Lucian came across a rather forlorn looking Claire as she stood upon the balcony. There she leaned against the wrought iron banister, staring sadly out at the stars and the distant sea. He sighed softly as he approached, though her eyes remained fixed on the waves crashing toward the beach outside the high outer walls of their haven.
“I take it you’re thinking about him again?” Lucian greeted her softly.
“Him?” she returned, only briefly meeting those impossibly dark eyes of his.
“You know, your ‘best friend in the world’” he clarified with a sad smile.
“I don’t know how accurate that title still is” she returned softly. “I mean, three years?” she sniffled slightly, “three years back in France with a family he’s never even been that fond of, at that” she added in an even quieter tone.
Lucian sighed once more, his eyes also turning to the sea as he tried to muster some words of comfort for her. After another long moment, he spoke again, “it may be hard to believe, but I almost miss him too.”
“Really?” Claire replied as she gave him a skeptical look.
“Yes actually. The way I constantly caught him staring at my posterior did give me a much needed boost of confidence from time to time” he teased, hoping to elicit a smile from beneath her rather static frown of the last few years.
Claire did manage the tiniest of smiles though before shaking her head back at him, “admittedly, it is a rather nice posterior” she teased back.
“My my Claire. You’ll make me blush” he returned the subtle flirtation.
“I somehow doubt that” she told him with a slight wrinkle of her nose.
After another moment, Lucian had to ask, “so is it true that he actually wasn’t even interested in women before meeting you?”
Claire narrowed her eyes back at him, “and where exactly did you hear that?”
“From a source I wish I still didn’t remember ever meeting” he mumbled, that darkness and sadness passing over his face once more.
Not wanting to poke at the obviously still very sensitive subject of his sire, Claire backtracked to his previous question, “I think Eliot was just very confused about what he wanted at all when we first met. I offered to try to help him figure out if women actually were part of what he might want someday.”
“And apparently the answer was a resounding yes” Lucian returned, not able to keep from moving his eyes over her body at the thought his words produced.
“We were trapped on a ship together for four months” Claire reminded.
“A ship with an entire crew of other men. Yet it was your bed he shared, was it not?”
Claire tried to hide another smile, “like I said, I think he was just confused about what he wanted at all” she then sighed softly as she drifted off into sweeter memories of the many nights spent in Eliot’s arms. She then finally pulled herself back to the present conversation a few moments later, “I think the final decision was that he mostly does still find himself attracted to men... mostly. But I’m just one of the rare exceptions to that rule.”
“Rare indeed,” he replied as his eyes moved over her once more.
“And how is it that a conversation about me and Eliot’s romantic encounters seems to have put you in such a flirtatious mood?” she called him on it with another small smile, “Perhaps you did enjoy his longing glances more than you let on.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s it, exactly,” he teased once more. Only then, their eyes caught one another’s for a long moment before their combined loneliness somehow led to them moving closer as his lips covered hers, pulling her body closer yet as the stars twinkled above them that night.
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Shortly after Claire’s and Lucian’s lovemaking had come to an end late that night, he offered her another sweet kiss before excusing himself from her chambers to go and find a servant to satisfy the one hunger that still remained that evening. Claire smiled after him as he left the room, only to suddenly startle at the sound of a floorboard creaking. The shock was clear on her face when her eyes fell upon Eliot leaning back upon the still open balcony door with an expression that seemed to encompass several emotions all at once.
“Eliot...” she whispered, instinctively having yanked the sheet up around herself at the sound of that small creak a second earlier. Her eyes were wide as she took in the fact that he still looked just the same as he had eight years ago when she had met that strange nineteen year old boy on a French train.
“Apparently number twelve worked up an appetite” was his soft greeting, his eyes moving over her with a strange combination of sadness and happiness alike.
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“Wha...” she then just shook her head, “when did you even get here?”
“About two orgasms ago” he stated softly, still somehow managing a smile as he moved into the room.
Claire had to make an obvious effort to try and retain her composure as she tried to find more words, “I didn’t even know you had left France.”
“How could you have? I was still there only an hour ago” he told her with a soft sigh as he took a seat at the edge of the bed, just a few inches from where the sheet draped over her outstretched legs as she stiffly sat against the headboard, holding the same sheet to her breasts as her eyes stayed on him.
“You just left France... an hour ago?” she asked with a raised brow.
“Less than, really” he offered as though it were the simplest thing.
She then shook her head once more, “how on earth did you travel from Paris to Los Angeles in… less than an hour?”
Eliot allowed a small smile, sad though it still was, “well I definitely didn’t take a ship. Bad experience with the last one and all” he added wryly.
“Then... how?” she asked again, adjusting her eyes as she flinched slightly at the fact that his aura had grown so much brighter in the time that had passed since she had last seen him, and it did now quite obviously, sparkle.
He smiled again as he turned slightly to her, outstretching his hand, palm up. A moment later a red rose grew upward from that palm, right before her eyes. He then offered her that delicate conjured flower with another smile, “magic, remember?”
Claire just shook her head with further awe as she took the offered rose in her slightly shaking fingers. She lifted it to her face and took in the sweet aroma that confirmed that it was indeed a real living flower and not just some sort of illusion, the likes of which she probably hadn’t even seen since Awsha’s terrible little Ravnos companion had been expelled from their lives years earlier.
Claire allowed another smile before moving to place it with others that were in a vase on the nightstand already. When she turned back to Eliot again, his smiling eyes were still watching her. “I still don’t even understand how any of this even happened” she stated with further amazement.
“We might need several hours for that entire explanation” Eliot warned as he looked down with another smile.
“I’ll be up all night” she returned with her own grin.
“You mean number twelve won’t be returning for another round?” he couldn’t help asking.
“Is that really what you’re going to call him from now on?”
“As long as I can call myself number eleven every time I talk to him. Just as a gentle reminder” he smirked back at her.
Claire simply allowed another smirk in return. He then adopted a more sincere smile as he moved to crawl over her legs and take his own seat against the headboard next to her. He then took a moment to try and figure out how to even begin to explain how he had become ‘awakened’ which is the term Douglas had used to describe any mortals who learned how to tap into and wield power such as theirs in order to change the very world around them in amazing ways.
Eliot took a breath before deciding on how to try and begin to make sense of his new skills and abilities in a way in which she’d understand, “In short, I came to a realization. I mean, your own beliefs shape the world around you, right? But, what happens when you force yourself to change your beliefs?” he began, then looked back at her with another smile, “the world changes.”
“I think I might need a little more than that” she told him with another smile, her gaze still not wavering from his.
Eliot looked down only briefly with another smile, “I mean, all my life I believed... certain truths about myself. Then, you actually were the one who made me rethink all of those truths. I began to see things in an entirely different way. I finally stopped repressing certain things about myself. And then other truths about myself slowly began to surface as well” Eliot paused for only a moment before continuing, “there’s a little spark inside everyone, and most people never dig deep enough to find it. But I slowly but surely found mine. And when I did?” another smile, “I discovered how amazing it really was.”
“And now you can just do magic? Real magic?” she stated with a slight trembling in her voice.
“Do I need to make you another flower?” he teased.
“I mean I believe you. That would be an epic level of denial if I didn’t” she admitted, “but I guess I just never met anyone... any mortal... who found a way to do the things that I guess you can do now.”
“And you’ve still barely seen any of what I can do now” Eliot told her with a bit of pride as he leaned in to gently kiss the tip of her nose. “Douglas taught me a lot over the past few years.”
“Douglas, the guy who originally taught you the blood thing?”
“The same” Eliot confirmed with another smile.
“You took him to France with you?” she asked, trying to keep her tone even.
“Do I hear number twelve coming back up the stairs?” he told her pointedly, which just caused a slight glare from her in return, though it quickly dissipated. He then continued, “but, yes. Though it was more like he took me.”
“So, if you and Douglas were... learning so much... for the last few years, why suddenly come back now?” she asked, her eyes downward as she spoke. “Did he run out of things to teach you... or positions?” she couldn’t help adding.
Eliot returned her playful glare, but his expression soon grew more serious as he also looked down, “actually, I’m back now because my father did finally give in to his illness. He passed yesterday.”
“Eliot, I’m sorry.”
Eliot just gave her a skeptical look, “you do remember how much fondness I had for my father, right?” he reminded her.
“Well yes, but still” she stated softly as she covered his hand with hers. She then quickly looked back up at him, “what about your brother?”
“Crowned this morning” he answered with his lighter tone returning.
“So, he got over his own illnesses then?” Claire asked with a hopeful smile.
“With a little help” he said as he held up his other hand with a slight wiggle of his fingers.
Claire let out a small gasp, “you did it? You actually healed him?”
“I’m sure fate is going to fuck me hard for that one” he admitted almost under his breath, but then quickly returned to his normal volume, “but Louis, or rather Napoléon IV, is healthy now, and the new emperor” he added with another smile.
“Fate?” Claire asked, not able to overlook that rather ominous start to his sentence.
“Douglas actually calls it paradox” he admitted with a hesitant tone, “though that is an even longer story. But it’s summarized by that old saying about everything having a price” he informed in an even quieter tone, “but let’s not talk about that right now” he smiled once more as he turned to pull her into his arms, the sheet falling away as he did, “don’t we have three years to catch up on?” he asked, punctuating his question with a long kiss.