i'm just another {boy} without a {crown} :: colt

[South]

manage me, i'm a mess, turn a page, i'm a book half unread
i wanna be laughed at, laughed with, just because
i wanna feel weightless, and that should be enough
but i'm stuck in this fucking rut, waiting on a
secondhand pick-me-up, and i'm over getting older

The music thrums in a way that shakes down to the marrow of my bones as the six of us edge through Glamour's front door after a borderline confrontation with a particularly unpleasant-looking werewolf bouncer that consisted of me trying to explain our purpose here while simultaneously holding Kiera back from punching him in the solar plexus. Although we have as much right to be in here as any Downworlder does, the establishment isn't too friendly with the Nephilim on principle. It's not a prejudice made without reason, really. Where Shadowhunters go, carnage seems to follow. Or maybe carnage goes and we follow; at any rate something expensive usually ends up getting broken. Tonight we're here under the guise of simply having a night out, and even with Persuasion runes all over me it took a fair bit of convincing to get us in. I certainly didn't imply that we were actually here to hunt down a rogue vampire, or we would have never made it past the entrance for fear of the trouble we could potentially cause.

"All right, let's keep a low profile and get this over with as quickly as possible. I hate nightclubs." For all the world, we really do look like a ragtag group of teenagers dressed to impress and primed to party. What no one knows is that there's a blessed dagger in a thigh holster under the glittery fabric of Kiera's mini skirt, a crucifix in the inside pocket of Riley's jacket or that we all have at least one vial of holy water somewhere on our person. As for me, I over-prepared. A quick mental list reminds me that there's an electrum throwing knife stuffed into the side of my boot, a blessed blade identical to Kiera's kept safely in a sheath and tucked tucked into the waistband of the Guess skinny jeans Avon got me for my birthday, the hilt kept hidden under the fabric of a white cotton v-neck and a slim-fitted black suit jacket, pockets stocked with holy water and the hollow hilt of my dormant seraph blade. At the last minute, I threw a rosary around my neck and tucked the actual cross part into my shirt collar, half fashion statement and half defense mechanism. It's my goal for us to get out of here without shit hitting the fan, but if it does, we're ready. My eyes scrape over the crowd, black-lined pools of amber finding nothing distinguishable in the writhing mass on the dance floor, and I sigh. "Kiera, get on the dance floor and look around. Avon, get up to the balcony and search up there. Gallifrey, Jacob, get to the lounge area, chat people up and see if you can get any information. Riley, go sit in the lounge with Gal and Jake and for the love of the Angel, stay out of trouble. I'll go see what I can find out at the bar. You all know the signal if you find anything, and if things go really bad, fall back to the front doors. Let's go."

The group splits up in a matter of seconds, Jacob dragging Riley off while talking ninety miles an hour and Kiera making for the dance floor with a look on her face that says she'll be doing more gyrating than searching even as Avon disappears with all the silence of a shadow into the staircase by the far wall. In the blink of an eye, I'm left alone, standing by the coat check like the awkward wallflower I am and cursing the fact that the damn bloodsucker had to pick a thriving Downworld nightclub for his hidey-hole. I'm socially inept at the best of times, far more accustomed to alienating people with icy derision than I am with functioning in a group. Still, duty calls, so I attempt to pull my face out of its irritated scowl and head for the neon-lit bar, feeling far too claustrophobic and wishing that we could just hunt as Nephilim were meant to, out under the open sky without any walls or crowds to get in the way.

When I fold myself into a tangle of lanky limbs on the nearest bar stool, I'm greeted by a somewhat familiar face that makes me feel a little less out of my element. That pretty dark-haired Fey girl that's always waiting tables at Fredrico's when Riley and I go there for breakfast must do a night shift here, because she floats up on shimmery wings with an iridescent smile, says in an airy voice that she hasn't seen any of the Angel's Children around in a while and asks where my brother is. I shrug vaguely and motion off into the distant reaches of the club, telling her that no, I don't want anything to drink, thanks, before swiveling the stool on its axis and staring off into the strobe-light-fog-machine-trance-music abyss. Finding one specific vampire in this place is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. At a rave. While I know I should be aiding in the search effort, I find myself seeking out the others instead, verifying their well-being one by one. It's a default ingrained into me after years of assertion that I am not worth nearly as much as they are, that my only function is to see that they come out of each mission unscathed even if it is to my own detriment. Last week an Oni Demon decided to take up residence in an old warehouse and had to be taken care of. Riley ended up with a black eye and I like to never heard the end of it from Casper and my mother combined. They all seem to be doing all right, though, so I allow myself to relax a bit, eyes glazing over and getting lost in the swirling cataclysm of my own thoughts.

Everyone at the bar gives me a reasonably wide berth, but I can't tell if it stems from the Marks that sit blatantly on my skin or from the distinct air of cold detachment that hovers about me in all but the most intimate of occasions with the people I care about. I don't mind; on the contrary, solitude is something familiar and almost comfortable, and it's typical for Shadowhunters to be met with a certain measure of distrust in any Downworlder establishment, so I certainly don't take it personally. I lose track of time, its passage marked only by the shifting, intoxicating beats of songs changing and the occasional break from my reverie to check on everyone and make a rudimentary sweep of the place, checking for any vampire lurking about that would match our given description. I don't have to look at my watch to know we've been here for at least an hour. At this rate, we could be here all night and still leave empty-handed, and the prospect of having to go back to the Institute with nothing to show for a whole week of searching and tracking down informants makes me cringe. If Casper went postal over the incident with the Oni, I don't even want to think about his reaction when I tell him we've lost the trail of a rogue vampire who's been casually snacking on college students for the last month.

Although my eyes remain fixed forward, my carefully honed sense of spatial awareness flares, partially aided by the Mark that stretches over the span of my collar bone, a slight shift in my personal atmosphere making me aware of someone sitting on the stool next to me. My first thought is Kiera, finally tired of dancing, but then I spot her in the middle of the floor, still pop and locking for all she's worth. An eyebrow raising speculatively, I shift my gaze to the left, somewhat taken aback at the sight of my new companion. Warlock, definitely, it's evident in the golden, lupine eyes and delicately pointed ears. Dark hair, strong-looking shoulders, full lips, nice smile. Cute.

Something in my stomach lurches at that last realization, a sort of irrational guilt burning at the lining of my veins because I've never been able to do anything in my life normal or right and despite the fact that I know it's just another part of who I am something in me always manages to feel just a little bit filthy whenever I hear Casper start off on a tirade about those people. Riley is accepting and unconditionally loving in only the way that Riley can be about it (and even he makes the occasional crack about how maybe I should help him revamp his wardrobe or some other ridiculously feminine thing despite the fact that he knows I spend my days up to my elbows in motor oil and that I can change the transmission in a sports car in record time), but I'm more than aware that I wouldn't receive the same courtesy from anyone else, especially not in the carefully constructed taboos of Shadowhunter society. I don't even notice that I've quickly averted my eyes until it hits me that I've been staring intently at an empty glass in front of someone else's chair for twenty seconds, and something about that manages to kindle my inner rebel, whispering fiercely that I won't be held to anyone's standards but my own. So what? I am sitting next to a wolf-eyed Warlock boy, who happens to be very attractive. I am allowed to think that. And anyone who wants to say otherwise can kindly fuck off.

Still, there is always that part of me that stays sepulchered behind walls of ice a mile thick, that hesitates to trust and never, ever give anything away. So when I do bring my gaze back level with his, I make sure that it's set in a neutral deadpan, something cold and removed and as far from vulnerable as I can get. "Can I help you?"

Everything is a little easier when you keep everyone at arm's length. I'm living proof.

if i could just find the time i would never let another day go by, i'm over getting old
maybe it's not my weekend, but it's gonna be my year
and i'm so sick of watching all the minutes pass as i go nowhere
and this is my reaction to everything i fear
'cause i've been going crazy, i don't want to waste another minute here

[/color][/blockquote][/justify]

[Elegant]

Happiness stumbled upon a chapel last night
And I can't help but back up when I think of what happens inside
What you calling a sin, isn't up to them
Afterall, afterall I thought we were all your children
But I will die for my own sins, thanks a lot

My life has been a series of masks and blood. There has never been a time where one did not follow the other, excepting that one masquerade ball I went to where I did not accidentally set anything aflame. The point is, that it's been some time since I have been purely myself. Usually each lifetime that I spend among the mortals is marked by a disguise and then their end. Whether that end with a dagger, or an attack by one's own body, each guise has turned to dust. It's inevitable of course, the attachment I get to each name I become. The people that come into my life when I am a mortal, those that manage to seek me out and touch me in some way, they all are inevitable. It's a question of whether life is worth living or not, dust is inevitable for all but a few. I am one of those that has never met his fate. I wouldn't wish it upon anyone, stagnancy is as close to death as my kind can get. I once jokingly named my youth as such, and was told it was a gift. Baby, I was born this way, I told the foolish man, t'was no gift, but a curse.

My feet meet the pavement in exclamations of greetings, wrought with joy and familiarity. They never got to be together often when I was younger either. I found it bothersome to walk most places and would usually just snap my fingers and get there. In my old age, I have found a soft pleasure in walking. Even if this life is filled with so many new things that sometimes I find it overwhelming. I am a boy that grew into manhood when language was the newest thing. You wouldn't know it by looking at me. I look like I'm somewhere in my early twenties, one of those college boys that hoot and holler like five year olds. I did my hooting, and my hollering years ago, screaming into the wind like an idiot, challenging anyone and anything. I was pigheaded and rash. Still am pigheaded and rash if we're being honest here.

I stick out this evening in my bow tie and jacket. It's the usual thing for me to wear, although I am prone to not wearing much at all unless it's a must. I was going to stay in, but Aesop told me to go out and get a life. (I laughed for ten minutes at that one.) He was going to go see Amity or something, and I was going to stay in for the seventh night in a row. I think I'm going through my cave years again, except this time I'm not in a nice little hollow hidden away from the rest of the world. I probably saved a couple hundred lives by staying in my cave for so long. Took a couple thousand more during my 'Fuck it All' Blood Years. Even monsters like me need to get out every now and then. Not that I don't try and make up for it.

I've always made a point of going unarmed. I do enough damage without a weapon. I'll walk through the worst parts of town, half hoping for someone to stick their dagger into me and in just the right way that I manage to die fast enough that I can't fix it. I have no practice in the use of anything that could ask for pain, but I am well versed in swordplay, and the economics of firing a bullet. But just because I know how to hurt and kill doesn't mean I like doing it. Not anymore at least. There as a time when I reveled in the crunching of bones, the screaming of souls, and the slipping of blood. That was then, this is now. I thought being the son of a demon meant that you had to be one yourself. Mortals showed me differently. Aesop Bloom showed me differently.

I nod curtly to the werewolf guarding the door and slip through. I have never seen him before in my life, he has never seen me. All the other countless times I have been here, it's been another man, and another before him, and sill another. But they have all been wolves. They really are excellent beings at judging a person's character. (Or, you know, maybe he just senses the fact that I'm a powerful ass warlock.) I have the perks of being a wallflower swimming through my head as I enter the crowded rooms of the club, knowing I could have written the book myself if I wasn't so noticeably not a wallflower. I slip onto the dance floor, no leak onto it as if I've slipped into a different skin. I shut my eyes and let my mind wrap it's self around minds sick with substances and the heat of bodies too close together.

The bitter sweetness of drugs and alcohol that will not burn at my lifeline climbs into my head, releasing endorphins all the same. A nymph wraps herself around me, and slips her hand into the front pocket of my pants. We dance together, and then I dance with a number of others, feeling my way into their thoughts, penetrating something that isn't meant for me. I take it all the same, unable to ask anymore, unable to control it. The sound of the music swims through me, and I watch as a shadowhuntress, a daughter of the angel dances past. She grins slyly at me and I laugh, wondering what job she is supposed to be doing that she's not. Soon, too soon, I am spit out. with slightly dilated pupils from the euphoria, and a slightly more exhausted body.

Exhaustion clings to my bones and never stops. I feel it's hateful hold even in rest. The older I get, the more tired I get too, and there seems to be no rest for the wicked, no rest for me. We all deal with longevity in different ways, I don't know how to deal with mine. I should after all the eons I've spent alive. The more lives I see lived fully and gone, the older, the more I feel that I feel. It's supposed to get easier to watch mortals grow old and fade out, it does not, it always grips my heart afresh and splits me down the middle. I have done relationships before, the only ones that have lasted at all come through immortal beings like myself. We grow bored of each other and it ends for a while, then we go wheeling back. So the cycle goes. I'm tired of watching everyone around me that I love die. I'm tired of growing attached to things, I'm tired in general. It all seemed so simple when I was young, why can't it still be?

Running a hand through my hair, I leave the dance floor behind to take to the bar. There's a boy sitting there, an avoidance around him like he has the plague. So silly, that thing came from a lepper, not a son of the Angels. Well, a lepper turned rat. Funny though, that's usually my role. With a sigh, I slip onto the stool next to his, smiling softly at the Fae girl, Fenn klardie who slides my usual at me across the bar. "Thanks, love." I catch it easily, darting out a hand quickly at the last second. Downing it in one gulp, I go for the hard stuff, I finally glance to my right, and see brown eyes look away. I was never one for subtleties, so I let my gaze rest on him, my golden eyes skimming his body, wondering how he'd be in bed. Tall and lanky, and with a pretty delicious fashion sense. I appreciate his muscles and the runes that mar them. Carefully, I notice the way his shirt clings to him, how his fabric breathes with him.

His face is what ruins me. The shyness there, it softens my age for a moment, and fills me, for just a moment, with hope. There isn't a smile there, no, nor is there the arrogant look permanently fixed on every teenager's face these days. As he feels a range of emotions, mortals feel so many these days, his expression changes with them. It's fleeting, each movement, might be hard to catch, but it's there. If his expression carries arrogance for the rest of his life, for a moment there I saw sadness so achingly brilliant that it arrested my soul. Then there came a brief moment of an almost smile, a sunrise almost reached but for the night. I suddenly see a point I wasn't aware I was searching for. So when he turns to me and asks, "Can I help you?"

It's easy for me to say with a lazy smile, "If you'd let me buy you a drink, that'd really help me out."

Buying someone a drink doesn't get you attached. It's usually the part where I bring them home afterwards. Not this time.

Maybe I should learn to shut my mouth
I am over twenty-five
And I can't make a name for myself
Some nights I break down and cry
Lucky that my father's still alive

[South]

come one, come all, you're just in time
to witness my first breakdown
'cause there's a mile gone
for every minute passed
while i'm stuck in this town

When he smiles, it's the sort of grin that someone could get lost in, all languid and easy like a lazy summer day, like the feeling of sunshine baking into your skin when you've spent far too long in the dark to remember the sensation. I'm not used to being on the receiving end of smiles like that, and I certainly am never on the giving end. Child of the Angel or not, I've always felt safer under the cover of cold and dark rather than allowing myself to be dragged into a world of light that could expose all my shortcomings, leaving me empty and aching and still unworthy of anybody's love. But even in the face of my determination to remain behind an iron curtain of indifference, the Warlock boy's smile is contagious, the shiny-bright flash of teeth under the neon lights sparking all the way up into xanthous eyes that look... old, I suppose would be the best way to describe them. Very old and very kind, like someone who's seen the suffering of ages but never really let it warp the inherent goodness in them, something I myself have never possessed. Against my own will and better judgement a tentative half-smile tugs upwards at the corners of my lips, low and unsure and a little more broken than I'd like to admit. I notice the timbre of his voice before I process what he's actually saying, a smooth baritone that's got a melodic, soothing quality, like listening to someone speak a lullaby. "If you'd let me buy you a drink, that'd really help me out."

Oh. Oh. In a split second, the smile dies on my lips, my expression giving way to something caught between shock, disbelief and just the smallest bit of fear. This is not the life I live, the incomprehensible dance of social graces and flirtation, and I am suddenly thrown so far out of my element that my head spins slightly, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. I have always resigned myself to a life alone because it's the easiest path for me to take - people might always assume that I'm like that if I never take a wife and settle down, but in all honesty it's far more likely that they'll simply judge me to be the backward, antisocial screw-up that I am. I would take loneliness any day over wearing my heart on my sleeve and letting the world use it for target practice. Loneliness is easy for me, familiar, and the empty ache of it is preferable to the fiery burn that comes from being told yet again that I'm a disappointment, that I'm wrong and that the world would be better off without me in it.

So no, I'm not aware of the politics of flirting, never bothered to learn them because I figured they were something I would never need. I've found plenty of guys attractive and made a mental note of it, sure, maybe even had a few butterflies-in-the-stomach kindergarten crushes, but for the sake of a secret I'll never reveal I never let those thoughts go any farther than the canvas of my imagination and tentative what-ifs. There's too much to lose given the alternative; in a way, I'm not so unlike Riley in this respect, rendered selectively mute by a refusal to speak up in at least one situation, although most of the time I'm more vehement and work against it and fight tooth and nail until I'm back in my carefully constructed area of neutrality. I remember the first time I realized that if Jacob weren't so goddamned annoying I might actually like-like him, sky-blue eyes and a nice laugh and a sort of positive energy about him that pulled others into his center of gravity, and the thought of having to deal with liking him scared me so much that I decided to be an absolute bitch to him instead. In an odd way, it balanced out perfectly. Now I just look at him and see a spazzy, irritating, reasonably good-looking teammate, and that's something I can deal with. But this? This is nothing I've ever experienced before, something unfamiliar and more than a little scary.

I like to think I'm a very good actor, and my life thus far has given me sufficient reason to believe that I am. Even though Riley's oblivious most of the time there was still an odd relief in how shocked he was when I told him that I was... not heterosexually inclined. Despite my skinny-jean-and-v-neck brand of fashion and a penchant for eyeliner, I give off a fairly straight vibe, as far as I can tell. For the Angel's sake, I fix cars as a side job. How many stereotypical gay men know their way around the mechanical guts of an '83 Monte Carlo like they know the back of their hand? I'm not a hairdresser or interior designer by any stretch of the imagination; I like football and beer and I hate Broadway musicals and appletinis. Up until now, no one, even people I found attractive in the first place, has made any sort of advance on me. I think back to how old the Warlock boy's eyes looked when I first saw him, speaking of years that didn't show at all in his face. Maybe gaydar improves with age. I am suddenly hyper-aware of all the other people standing around, how Gallifrey meets my eyes across the room with a little half-wave and a questioning look at my companion, and something almost akin to terror pulls taut at the lean musculature of my frame, every fiber of me straining to protect the final, cataclysmic secret that could be my ruination.

"Not interested, sorry," I say with a little more acid in my voice than is probably necessary, eyes hardening into an impassive stare before snapping away from his face and out into the crowd (I realize for the first time in the past few minutes that I'm actually here for a reason, something far more important than pretty eyes and smiles like the sun), the icy barrier that sits on my skin like an armored veneer flaring up to a hundred and ten percent. I might have problems letting people in, but I certainly don't have any trouble with keeping them out. A hand comes up in an old nervous habit to scratch at the hair flat-ironed into submission at the nape of my neck, a single spindly finger absently tracing the Clarity rune drawn there, meant to keep my thoughts from becoming too muddled. So much for that. "And even if I was, I'm working. Drinking on the job's bad form."

I chance another sidelong look at him, something that proves to immediately be a bad idea. He's one of those rare people who are the heartbreak kind of handsome, something that just pulls at you until you're sucked into their gravity like a hopeless moon, trying to claw your way out of orbit and never quite succeeding. My emotional armor falters a bit, caught off guard, and I stammer slightly, "I m-mean, no offense but I don't swing that way and um... you haven't seen a rogue vampire floating around by any chance, have you?"

My (very) inner Smooth Operator slaps a palm over his face and groans. Nice one, Dempsey. Rather than try to follow it up and make myself look like even more of a goon, I rip my eyes away again and settle on a heavy, uncomfortable sort of silence, the kind that speaks volumes. In this case, it says Sorry, really, but I'm hardly worth your time.

don't call the doctors, i don't need no medication
i just need one more vacation and make it last
hear me out, please, judge and jury, i'm an innocent man
and it would be such a terrible injustice to put me away
without thinking about all the terrible mistakes

[/color][/blockquote][/justify]

[Elegant]

This growing old is getting old
I often find myself here thinking
About the birds, the boats, and past loves
That flew away or started sinking
You say, "It's all up in the stars"

Almost without meaning to, I wiggle into the mind of the boy beside me, absentmindedly swiveling on my stool to face him. I'm met with a terrible sadness, a blow so fiercely crushing that I almost feel my chest concave with the weight of it. For a small moment, I forget to breath, and my breath stops in my throat, or wherever it is and simply rests there like an added weight. Images fill my mind, of a childhood spent in hatred. Two names, Riley, and Avon, and then everyone else is in shadow, with a slick layer of slime on them. Then two more names emerge, Galifrey, Jacob, but the slime on the two older shadows only grows thicker and more wasting till it's amazing they can breath at all or sleep at night with the hate layered on them so very thickly. Mixed with that hate, is a terrible thirst, a yearning for not only something along the lines of recognition, but maybe for love as well. Bringing a hand up, I rub my eyes, feeling traces of salt on my fingers, the feeling of euphoria from before completely gone. I haven't felt so intensely for a while now. That short moment almost made me feel better about my life. I mean, sure, it's had it's ups and downs. When I say downs, I mean deeper than the pits of Hell, but it's also had it's bouts of happiness. I don't think this kid has ever been truly happy in his whole miserable life.

I lean against the counter, using my hand to rest my head, thanking Fenn with a wink when she refills my drink. There is no doubt in my mind that I am at the least two thousand years older than any being in this bar. Sometimes it's hard to forget just how old I really do feel. Imps wink at me, and say, "You're as old as you feel." Well the flesh is willing, as is the mind. The heart is not. The heart hasn't been in it for a very long time, not since the lifespan I spent with a girl named Sarah back in the eighteenth century. Even that was a half love, a dance because I was given her by the Queen. But the youth that I felt with her was so special to me. I still visit her grave on the anniversary of our marriage as a force of habit. She died young of a broken heart when she found herself unable to have children because she was married to me. She was always so sad that she couldn't give me a heir. She thought it was her fault of course. men aren't sterile, women are. Warlocks cannot have children. That's lucky for the kids that would never have to have us for fathers. Think of the disappointment, not to mention all of the extra people in the world. She was only twenty-eight when she died. We spent ten years together, and those ten years were some of the happiest in my life.

People think immortality would be great, but it's not. Mostly it's just an endless loneliness with blips of happiness and love. People think that never growing old would be beautiful, but it's not. Especially when you're watching the one you love go through their cycle of life, leaving you far behind when they turn to dust. The sadness and suffering of leaving me behind leaves them alone once they die, but for me it is another bleary torture to add to my long list. For them, they have led a life that has been full and left them wanting more. I have led a life far too empty, leaving me wanting so much less. Towards the end of their spans, people go kicking and struggling, or they take their time going home, making it a peaceful walk to their deaths. People I touch always feel guilty for dying. I despise their guilt, for I am jealous that they get to die. No, people do not understand what it is to be this old, but I in turn have lost the ability to understand what it is to be so very mortal, and so very young.

"Not interested, sorry,"

A crooked grin spreads across my face as he says three words that are meant to condemn. They do a poor job of doing so when his mind is saying anything but. In fact, he likes my smile, that's sweet of him to think that. But half his brain is still focused on the people around him. It has been this whole time really. Noticing the people in the crowd, his young hunter friends, and looking for a certain vampire. The other half is bent towards this conversation, where much of it is trying to make it look like we're not talking like that. It's cute when he blushes, a sign of interest, or how he plays with his hair, he's nervous. It's difficult to try and fool me, simple words don't work. One has to use their body, mind, heart, and mouth to fool the likes of me. I roll my eyes, and drawl out, "If you had more practice at a poker face, I think I might actually believe you."

It's good for him that he didn't accept my offer of a drink, although slightly rude. I'm still not used to this day and age, and all their little slights they practice daily. Back in the stiff days, where everything was starched and no one saw anyone's ankles, not accepting the offer of a drink was like slapping a person. Today if you don't want a drink you don't have to drink one. I'm fond of the personal feeling it brings. Waiting for a moment, I drink down the second drink, feeling just as clear headed as i did upon entrance to the bar. it's good, as I said that he didn't accept my offer. I hadn't noticed before just how young he was. In this day and age it's also frowned upon to drink when you're so young. Go back a couple thousand years, and you'll see people giving wine to babies.We weren't much for decorum. Maybe the drink has stolen my tongue however, because before I know it comes, "What's the problem? Can't hold your substances?"

My eyebrow lifts in a question with the challenge, and I lean against the bar once again, back to it with both elbows on the bar. Scanning the crowd, I see this Riley fellow from Kaelen's memory looking awkward in the corner, the two hyperactive hamsters in the lounge, the girl dancing on the floor that must be one Kiera, but there is no sight of the other girl, an Avon. She must actually be quite good then. Either that, or she's on the balcony.

"I m-mean, no offense but I don't swing that way and um... you haven't seen a rogue vampire floating around by any chance, have you?"

For a short moment, I sit in complete shock. Turning to stare at him, I study him for a short moment. The form fitting jeans, (I'm so glad they came back in style because hot damn) the carefully done hair, the eyeliner. Not to mention all the gay thoughts. If this kid isn't gay, then I'm Ernest Hemingway's six toed cat. Before I can stop myself, my mouth spreads wide into a grin, and I almost laugh, instead I cover my mouth with a hand, so I don't belittle him. Being in the proverbial closet can be tough, or so I've heard. Not for a warlock. But I don't have the patience to humour him. I'm old as balls to be honest, and my radar is beyond superb even without the mind stuff.

"First of all, I'm rather old. My gaydar is never wrong. Second of all, I know a closet case when I see one honey, just as I know an undercover Nephilim when I see one. You people are terrible at subterfuge." Smirking slightly, I turn back to the bar, saying over my shoulder, "Oh and tell that young shadowhuntress on the floor that she's a wonderful dancer for me."

Well, Some nights I rule the world
With bar lights and pretty girls
But most nights I stay straight
And think about my mom, Oh God
I miss her so much

[South]

in this little number we're graced by two displays of character
we've got the gunslinger extraordinaire and a walking contradiction
and i for one can see no blood from the hearts and the wrists you allegedly slit
and i for one won't stand for this
if the scene were a parish, you'd all be condemned

“If you had more practice at a poker face, I think I might actually believe you. What's the problem? Can't hold your substances?”

My eyes narrow dangerously, a highly irritated expression settling over my features. Persistence is one thing and under any other circumstances I suppose I might even be flattered, but the pedantic tone of his voice accompanied by the fact that Gallifrey keeps shooting questioning looks at me across the club is enough to erase any semblance of me being pleased with my current situation. Now it feels less like persistence and more like being patronized, which simply isn’t going to fly. While I’m very good at patronizing people as a personal hobby, allowing myself to fall victim to that kind of condescension isn’t my mode of operation at all. A sneer pulls at the corners of my lips as I glare at the pointy-eared boy beside me, an extra measure of the normal amount of hostility for the rest of the world that I normally harbor surging beneath my skin. “I could drink you under the table, Spock. But as I said, I’m not interested. What part of that don’t you –“

“First of all, I'm rather old. My gaydar is never wrong. Second of all, I know a closet case when I see one, honey, just as I know an undercover Nephilim when I see one. You people are terrible at subterfuge.” I stammer to a halt as I’m interrupted, the color draining from my face. Whoever this guy is, he knows more than I had initially thought, but the question is how? My mind swirls in a chaotic half-panic barely held in check by the Clarity rune, frantically trying to think of what I’ve said in the last minute or two. I mentioned the vampire, yes, but that could have been for any reason, certainly no indicator that I’m here on a mission. He recognized Kiera, who I’m certain I didn’t make any reference to, preferring to let him think I was here alone. And of course, there’s the small matter of him passing accurate judgment on my sexuality after talking to me for less than five minutes, that’s new. How could he possibly know about her, about me, make all of these spot-on statements when I’ve been nowhere close to forthcoming with – I barely feel it at first, the slight tingly haze over my consciousness. It feels like that moment of a tipping point, like knowing you’ve forgotten something but not being able to remember what it is. It’s an anomaly, something foreign that I can tell isn’t a product of myself, so I focus on it, blinking slowly and trying to push through the mental veil.

It’s almost like skimming a hand over still water, a slight touch sending ripples undulating outwards into the deepest recesses with surprisingly little effort. As soon as I focus on the odd sensation it pulls me in, a flash of color and light and sound skating over my awareness - Gallifrey laughing at some stupid movie on TV, wet sand between my toes that time everyone went to Miami for a week, summer sunshine on my skin and the taste of vanilla ice cream as my father explained the difference between a Ferrari and a Delorean, Riley’s arm pressed to mine with the words of the parabatai oath hanging heavy in the air, the swooping sensation in my stomach every time the cute delivery guy with sea-green eyes would come drop off new parts at the garage and stay after to talk to me for a few minutes - I feel myself physically jerk and the tether shatters, leaving me back in the neon-lit nightclub with wide eyes and a completely drained complexion, teetering somewhere on the precipice between horror and rage as I look into the gleaming lupine eyes a few feet away. ”Did you just… were you just in my head?”

Everything I usually keep buried down so deep that even I can’t touch it now hovers unbearably close to my surface - loss, sadness, fear, a bottomless loneliness I can never seem to shake – and its presence sets me even more on edge, elegant digits wrapping around the sides of my barstool in a white-knuckled grip. Letting people in has never been something I’ve been okay with, but when they force their way in it goes beyond discomfort and shifts straight to feeling strangely violated, robbed of secrets that I never wanted to tell.

”Well, that’s not an invasion of privacy or anything,” I snark, the contours of each word clipped and brutal, lips practically dripping acid. ”Is that how you win over all the boys, dig around in their brains and make it seem like you understand them? So yeah, maybe you called it, Legolas. Maybe I am a closet case, but don’t insult me by even beginning to think I’m that gullible or that desperate. I’m. Not. Interested.”

I am positively seething by the time I finish, exuding more hostility that I have in a long time. The last time I was this irritated it ended in me pulling a proverbial Kiera and knocking over a bookshelf, followed by Jacob ending up in the infirmary with a broken nose for asking me if I was all right. I should get up and walk away now, should go fight my way through the writhing mass on the dance floor and sulk in the corner with Riley, or better yet go hunt down the damn bloodsucker so we can all go home, but something - be it rage or curiosity or the fact that while unforgivably nosy the Warlock boy really does have very pretty eyes and strong-looking hands - keeps me rooted to the spot, shooting him a glare that could bore through steel and cursing myself for what I’m about to do. ”Tell you what, though, Princess Zelda. I’d say you owe me a drink for deciding to go exploring around in my mind on a whim. If I let you buy me a beer will you piss off and let me work?”

Making a pointed decision to be as rude as possible, I don’t wait for an answer, flagging down the pretty Faerie bartender and ordering the most expensive thing they have on tap with a somewhat victorious, arrogant smirk settling across my lips. He wants to play this game? Fine. I can push people away no matter how close they might try to get. Up on the balcony I finally spot Avon, darting through the shadows like a half-remembered dream in a pattern that distinctly says she’s following someone. Could she have possibly found our target? At least if she has it’ll be a good excuse for me to make a quick escape, I think wryly as a tall glass of amber-toned liquid is placed on a coaster in front of me. There’s only so much I can do to someone who’s apparently unaffected by my blatant hostility, and free booze is free booze.

”So, find anything interesting while you were traversing my brain?” I drawl, taking a relatively delicate sip. It’s good, whatever it is (should be good when it’s an eight dollar draft of beer, but the price was more than half the reason I ordered it. I’m a passive-aggressive little bitch when I want to be, which is most of the time)

[/i], but I’m certainly not going to give pointy-eared-Warlock-boy the satisfaction of knowing that. ”What do you know now? Obviously my sexuality and my occupation. How about my name? My favorite book? The color of the walls in my room? The kind of cake I had on my eighth birthday?”

It’s said with a conversational tone but the malice lurks quiet but definitively present behind my eyes. It’s an odd feeling, how I’m torn between wanting to pound the living daylights out of this menial plebeian of a Downworlder for having the nerve to go rifling through the most intimate and sacred parts of me but at the same time being undeniably intrigued by him, all weighted words and lupine eyes that hold worlds behind them. Maybe I lied to him and myself. Maybe I am that gullible and that desperate, so gratified by the simple concept that someone in the world finds me desirable in some capacity that I’m drawn into his center of gravity with no real means of escape. Another sip, another razor-edged smirk, twin pools of kohl-lined amber darting up to look unabashedly into desert-sand gold. ”Unfortunately, I can’t read minds, and even if I could I would have more class than to go around poking into people’s private thoughts without permission. You have a name, then? I can’t just call you Green Goblin now that you’ve gone and bought me a drink, and besides, I’m running out of pointy ear monikers.”[/blockquote]

strike up the band, woah, the conductor is beckoning
come, congregation, let's sing it like you mean it
no, don't you get it, don't you get it, now don't you move
just stay where i can see you, douse the lights
we sure are in for a show tonight[/size][/color][/blockquote][/justify]

[Elegant]

Your melody sounds as sweet as the first time it was sung
With a little bit more character for show
And by the time your father's heard of all the wrong you've done
Then I'm putting out the lantern
Find your own way back home.

There was a time in my life where I went from night to day, day to night, praying for death to come to me so that I could befriend her and maybe we could leave together. Then there have been other nights spent in such helpless passion that I felt more infinite than I had ever felt before. Nights have been spent injecting substances, and drinking things I shouldn't, only to stumble down dark alleyways in search of the fair lady once again. Everything I do leads me no closer to the endless sleep, but gives me no steps back either. I cannot die, if I cannot die than maybe I cannot live either. So there are other nights where I search fr the summer-berry taste of Life,and shoot up with his delicious scent. Clear of my system, I'm always left to go back to the start, of when I was only a boy and wrapped in my mother's embrace who was only a girl. Everything I touch decays and turns to the Night. Everything I do not touch decays, I am a rock stuck in the constant stream of human life, and it is all I can do not to lie down and drown. I wish I could lie down and drown a slow death, to grow old with someone until we both decay into the earth, and there is no more living left to do because we have done it all. I could be likened to a ghost, but I'm far too corporeal.

The point of this train of thought, is that I'm far too old, far too world weary, to have a sense of self preservation. Even if this speck of a life, this glowing edifice could figure out a way to kill me, I wouldn't have the care to be frightened, let alone bothered. I would welcome the jab of a stele, or a dagger to my sternum at anytime he sees fit. If he actually managed to hurt me, that'd be something grand. They all threaten me with death, sometimes daily, but they don't understand that it isn't a threat to me. I have been too much for this world. So he mewls like an angered kitten beside me, his rage beautiful in the dim lights of the nightclub. His words spit from between closed lips, a mechanism of self defense rising up to meet the barred gates of his endangered soul. So when he asks in /that voice/, the one screaming from a soft center, if I was inside his head. There isn't anything to tell him, but the truth. Not the truth that I can't control my powers, it's automatic for my hands to dip into any honey pot near me by now. So I simply gaze at him, untouched by the heat brewing in him as he boils and I stare, cold as ever. "I skimmed it, yes.....you'd think I'd be more delicate in my old age, go figure."

Age had only served to make me blunt as a disgruntled monk. I felt a small cruelty layer itself upon me as I watched his anger burn hot and strong. He is filled with a righteous passion as I watch him speak of his right to privacy. Blah blah blah. I've only had rests of privacy in my whole life. No matter what I do, I always end up with the public eye on me, no matter what I look like, or what I call myself. Even when I was a hermit for that short time, living with six-toed cats, they couldn't leave well enough alone. They've made museums out of my homes so I cannot return to them and walk through them in wistful memory. My most private thoughts were taken and published too often to count, poems I've written of past lives taken and made a mockery of. There are sculptures of me, buildings and songs, legends dedicated to me. Yet for all they know about me, I am one of the most mysterious beings they will ever write about, for all they think they know of me, they know so much less.

I can't remember why I came out tonight, what the point of it was. Aesop wanted me to. I am too lost for this world, the ever changing technology, the way small etiquettes change so often. A sea of frustration pushes me back against walls, past corners I've been around hundreds if not thousands of times. I'm swimming in circles, and every night is beginning to feel the same. One day I'll wake up and realize that I'm not in the twenty first century anymore, but the twenty second. I'll blink, and it will be five years later, time has such little relevance. But the mortals around me that invented time hold it to themselves so fast. Every little thing is important to them. Even the memories they try to forget re precious to them. Their lives can go so fast, each day seeming to be a second, or they can be long and drawn out days of endless tortures. I have felt and shared these hours and years with many a man or woman, have slain them, or held their heads in my lap, weeping as their life blood spilled all over the floor. While mankind has rejoiced in every little new weapon of technology, I have cursed and rued them. I am the beast that hides in the shadows, the god that kneels to mankind because I am too tired to stand.

I know that I should feel shame for looking into his head, but I don't. I have already lived hundreds of years of my life, hidden away in guilt and shame. It would be a lie to say I still don't let it weigh me down everyday, but for little things like this where I can't control myself. My power is so vast that it dances around me. Still, in habit, my fingers go to my breast pocket where I keep cigarettes in a silver tin, but they dance away again just as quickly. It's rude to smoke around people who don't. I could ask him if he does, but I won't, afraid that he'll see it as a challenge and ask for a cigarette he doesn't want. He's taken a drink though, finally. It didn't take as long as I thought it would for him. Some expensive beer, probably the most expensive on the menu. How........cute? He's trying to get back at me. leaning my head on my arm, I stare at him with a little half smile. "Excellent choice," I say with a nod of approval.

”What do you know now? Obviously my sexuality and my occupation. How about my name? My favorite book? The color of the walls in my room? The kind of cake I had on my eighth birthday?”

His name is Kaelen Arthur Dempsey, and his favourite book is 'The Sun Also Rises' by Hemingway. Now that's interesting. It's not often you find people these days who still read that old stuff. Apparently it still holds something of interest for people. It does give me a warm feeling in the pit of my stomach, unusual, that he reads it and enjoys it. I skip impatiently past his stupid room colours. It's intriguing, but now my mind is running wild on the fact that he loves Hemingway, in boundless leaps. I get to the image of his eighth birthday, and there is no cake. He was forgotten. All day, barely anyone even remembered. There is a quiet, shining moment where Avon and Riley offer up their yearly gifts, but there is no cake. He locked himself in his room or the day, and was all by himself on his eighth birthday. It was long ago, but images still come up of a mother who was happy for a day, for me. She'd make oat cakes, and we'd spend the day together. No matter how much she despised me in the end, at least she could pretend for one day a year.

"You love Twilight, and your cake was carrot," I lie in an offhand way, as if I'm one hundred percent certain about it. When I look at him, all lanky bean pole, and dark dark eyes in this lighting, I see an eight year old, crying bitter, anger filled tears in his room. Sadness fills me at the idea of it, although I am all too used to the idea of a mother not loving her son. Suddenly feeling the essence of rage flow through me, I drain my drink, and stand up as if to leave. For a moment, I simply stare at this mortal that I have found. He could be likened to a rave, wearing almost all black like that, and the way he's perched so delicately on his stool. He's all thin hands, tin everything, I could break him. Young, young eyes surrounded by lines of dark liner. He's still so damned innocent, no matter what he might think. I should stop lending darkness to young men and women who don't need it. I should go back to the fae or the vampires, the creatures of the night that cannot die either. My downfall is found in the beauty of mortality.

He means to ruffle my feathers by saying these things to me, by poking and prodding. Either he has a death wish, or is so full f himself that he thinks he could actually hurt me. In annoyance, I lean in very close, past the personal bubble space that those mortals always talk about, until my face is barely an inch away from his. I lift his chin with one long finger, feeling his breath go in and out, watching the confused anger broil behind his eyes. if I leaned forward a centimeter or so, I could kiss him. I draw another finger down the side of his face to rest on his lips, interrupting his next layer of jabs that seem to shoot out of his lips like bullets. Eyes glittering in the darkness, I study his face, and almost recognize it as someone I know that died five hundred years hence. The rage disperses in the sudden sadness, my eyes lose the spark they held for just that moment. "I am Colt, destroyer of civilizations, builder of empires, architect of words, and an all round terrible person, apparently," I whisper softly, too tired to hold back the age old weariness and sadness that leaks in as I speak. Slipping my hands into my pocket, I take out a fifty and discreetly place it on the bar, the royalties still coming into my bank account from past lives have never made me have to work another day in my life. I could kiss him still, but I no longer wish it. I don't g around kissing people who hate me for fun. Pulling away quickly, I turn on my heel and walk out the front door into the night.

You've never been so divine in accepting your defeat
And I've never been more scared to be alone.
If love is not enough to put my enemies to sleep
Then I'm putting out the lantern
Find your own way back home

[South]

there was a time when the sky held the answers for the things i couldn’t find
but what happens when you're blind?
a shooting star once said to me that nothing's really what it seems
"you must make up your own mind"
well, i'll try this time

Something within me seems to fall away from the whole when he swoops suddenly into my personal sphere, a single, solid digit holding a roughness that isn't altogether unpleasant angling my chin upwards, pressed to the sharp hinge of my jaw to the point where I can feel my own pulse thrumming there, a jackhammer drumbeat that betrays far more than I would prefer. Knocked off balance, I blink, once, twice, the roaring noise of the club fading into the background in the wake of xanthous eyes that look so suddenly soulful and almost-lost that I catch myself in a moment of something that feels almost like pity mixed with a foreign heartbreak I can't place. There's an undeniable feeling that part of my soul (although the cynical side of me has questioned more than once if there's anything to my spirituality other than an empty, abandoned corner grown over with cobwebs, powered only by the clockwork rhythm of a heart that doesn't have a purpose for beating but continues to do so nonetheless) knows that look, that loss almost as well as I know my own particular brand of hopelessness. The small, simple touch sears at my skin with an impossible familiarity, and each blink sends a flash of color skating behind my eyelids, gradually forming into fleeting shadows of images. It isn't the same experience as when he went through my head without permission; this is something internal, almost like experiencing memory-ghosts from the earliest days of childhood, vague and scattered but still present.

A flickering candle flame. Bright sunshine and roses. A full, swishing skirt of rich forest-green brocade. Bright yellow eyes across a crowded room. A spindly, delicate hand twined up with a stronger counterpart, a shiny new golden band wrapped around one of the elegant digits. Those same desert-sand eyes, a sea of rumpled blankets and a warm smile that wrapped around the words "you are so beautiful." Endless bottles of medicines. A physician's regretful face. A stone bridge at midnight. The same eyes again, liquid gold and so dreadfully sad. Water, water everywhere, and then...

Nothing.

"What the -" a soft but insistent press of a finger against my lips cuts me off. Even my breath stutters out into silence, eyes owlishly wide and more than a little confused as they meet their gleaming counterparts across the half dark. I don't think I've ever seen someone look so bone-deep sad before, like the sorrows of the whole world were sitting across their shoulders with no hope for respite.

"I am Colt, destroyer of civilizations, builder of empires, architect of words, and an all round terrible person, apparently." And just like that, he's gone, out the front door with a quick turn and harried steps. I'm left sitting at the bar with a dumbfounded look on my face, taking absent sips from my glass and wondering what on earth just happened. If this is what flirting is like, I'd sooner just avoid the entire process. Of all the things I've experienced in eighteen years, that was certainly the weirdest. And I've seen Jacob Wheaton belligerently drunk and dancing on a table with a lampshade on his head singing some awkward ode to a red solo cup.

"Well, did you get her?" Kiera asks, out of breath and smiling as she folds herself into the now-empty seat beside me.

I blink a few times (I seem to be doing a lot of blinking lately), an eyebrow raised in confusion. "Her?"

"Yeah, the vampire. Crazy that we thought it was a guy but it was actually a female. So much for that informant of yours, but whatever, it doesn't matter as long as we got -" Kiera pauses, the look on her face turning apprehensive when she sees the utter befuddlement etched into my features. "Kaelen. Avon herded her right up to the front door. Tell me you got her."

Nope, sorry, I reply mentally, making a concerted effort to keep my face impassive. I was busy getting hit on by some hot warlock that seems to have a telepathy fetish and a thing for awkward, skinny Nephilim, must have missed her.

Kiera didn't need to hear it to get the basic idea. Planting her head in her hands, she groans, "Casper's going to have an absolute aneurysm. Way to drop the ball, Dempsey."

---

Unfortunately, Casper didn't have an aneurysm, which would have made my night a hell of a lot easier than it's turned out to be. Three o'clock in the morning finds me prowling the back alleys of Chicago's seedier neighborhoods alone, seething in the aftermath of a verbal blitzkrieg that basically amounted to You're a worthless waste of space, Kaelen, get out there and don't you dare come back until you can bring that vampire's ashes with you, why do we bother, you do nothing but disappoint us, if Riley had been in your place this never would have happened, blah, blah, blah. Tracking vampires is hard, tedious work, nearly impossible out in the open, but it's made moderately easier by the fact that the one I'm hunting down seems to be particularly peckish this evening, leaving a rather obvious trail of homeless people wandering aimlessly with glassy eyes and telltale pinpricks in the column of their necks. She's somewhere within a square mile, but that's a lot of ground to cover against a rogue Downworlder with superhuman speed, not to mention that I myself am exhausted, reflexes slowed by fatigue and Marks slowly beginning to fade. I'm strongly considering finding the nearest, cheapest motel or maybe hopping a cab across town to crash with my cousin Edana and her boyfriend when a shadow flickers in the corner of my vision.

A satisfied grin tugs at my lips, a hand reaching slowly to pull out the hollow hilt of my seraph blade. There's my troublesome little vampire, back to me and far too preoccupied with backing another shadowed form into a corner to notice someone behind her. Petite, close-cropped dark hair, blue cocktail dress and ridiculously high heels. An exact match to the description that Kiera gave me, and right now, a one-way ticket to me having a date with my bed before sunrise. Maneuvering carefully into the mouth of the alley and thanking the Angel for Stealth runes, I adjust my grip on the blade's hilt, voice nothing beyond a harsh whisper. "Habniel."

The vampire turns quickly but her reaction is still too slow, the Speed rune on my lower back flaring to life and sending me colliding into her full-speed, knocking the both of us up against the alley wall with the glimmering seraph blade at her throat. In the phosphorescent glow from the angelic sword I can see her face, clever and pixie-like with wide, violently blue eyes. "I know you. I've seen you at negotiations at the Institute; you're one of Adele Perdue's lot, from that clan down at the warehouse. What are you doing running about the city like it's a $5.99 buffet? I know Adele doesn't stand for that kind of nonsense."

"I don't answer to that shameful excuse for one of the Night Children any longer," she hisses, features angry but not motivating me to do anything other than roll my eyes. Still, she looks disturbingly young, freckles and tiny stature. She can't have been any older that fifteen when she Changed. The heavy knowledge of what comes next settles in my gut like a stone, but I grit my teeth and keep my face impassive, voice a neutral monotone.

"Well, whoever you're answering to now, you've broken the Accords on multiple occasions. You've been killing mundanes left, right, and center, disregarding feeding policies, and if the nasty black eye you gave my little sister on your way out of the club this evening is any indicator, you've also assaulted a Shadowhunter. The penalty for all three of those violations is death."

At this her eyes go wide, brimming with red-tinged tears and darting back and forth in search of an impossible escape, breaths heaving in blind panic. "No! No, I wasn't... I didn't mean... she made me, I didn't want to, please!"

Even though I know she's anything but, she looks like nothing more than a scared little girl. I try to keep myself from feeling the irrational guilt that licks along my veins like a black fire. She's a danger to society, I know that, but it still isn't nearly as easy as killing a demon. Demons, I can handle. Demons are inherently evil, with no gray areas. Demons don't fear death because death for them doesn't exist, only return to the Void from whence they came. Demons don't cry in terror.

Demons don't beg for mercy.

"The Law is hard," I whisper, free hand pulling the blessed dagger at my hip out of its holster. "But it is the Law. I'm sorry."

I make sure the blade hits her heart in a single, swift thrust, the most painless end I could have granted. There are times when I'm cruel simply because I can be, inflicting the kind of agony on the world that it brought on me first, but she just looked a little too much like Avon for me to go there. I watch with an impassive face as she jerks and gurgles, unnaturally bright crimson blooming over her lips before she dissolves into ash, falling in a gray pile to the concrete with nothing but the faintest whisper. I grimace faintly, pulling an empty vial out of my belt and scooping some of the sandy substance inside, something to throw on Casper's desk when he decides to jump on my case as soon as I walk back in the Institute's doors.

"I really hate doing that," I murmur, more to myself than to the person I just saved, still backed into the corner and cloaked in shadows. "They say we're heartless bastards, and I am one, I know, but it's still hard. Riley cried the first time he had to do it."

I sigh tiredly, finally looking up at the night-cloaked form a few feet away. "Let this be a lesson to stay out of the back streets after dark, yeah? Just so you know, vampires are real, along with a host of other nasty things that go bump in the night, so be careful when - you! What in the seven hells are you doing here?!"

From the shadows a pair of eyes gleams back at me, oddly familiar, feline yellow. Looks like Colt, destroyer of civilizations, builder of empires, architect of words isn't done with me yet.

and i never said i was right
well, i'm probably the one in the wrong
the voices are telling me i just can't always be this strong
and nothing feels right, not right now
like i've lost my mind somehow; i'm scaring myself

[/color][/blockquote][/justify]

[Elegant]

Well I’ve been living in this month of Sundays,
For so long I don’t remember Saturday night,
Broken records don’t play new tunes,
Except for once in a blue Moon,
And I have looked and the Moon is still white.

A curious weight of utter misery settles it's self like a cloak upon my shoulders. I am no stranger to sadness, but this is almost an added weight, unexpected. It's closer to the thickness of the sadness I sometimes spend years feeling. The thought of it coming back sends a skittering of fear through me. Although it comes in bouts, as to the changing of the tides, I am still not used to it. When I step out of the club and into the night, it's colder. To be expected, I know. Still, I stand in the entrance for a minute, letting my body adjust to the temperature change. As I wait, I watch a young woman in fishnets make her way down the street, away from the club. She looks furtively to her left, and then ducks into an alley. My curiosity piqued in a listless way, I let my feet follow her. I could simply appear beside her if I so wished it, but it's a walking kind of night.

When I slip into the alley after her, she's got her arms in a lover's embrace around an older man, a homeless man it would seem. I've done time as a homeless man. A bright and vibrant populice. I can almost feel the fear leeching from him, radiating in a matter of fact way. Then, when she slips fangs into his neck, it goes away, and he's so blissful I want to cry. Sometimes when I cry, I can't help it. The tears are leaking out before I know it. Aesop calls me a cry baby, but he understands. I've caught him crying at nothing too. I guess sometimes sadness just fills you up so very much that it has to get out one way or another, with or without your consent. Tonight I do not however, I simply watched mesmerized as she sucks the life blood out of the mortal. As she's finishing with him, I turn abruptly, on my heel, and glamour myself properly so I look like one of the mortals that she stalks. I've had a thought.

I walk slowly and deliberately, away from the alleyway, not making a nuisance of myself, just enjoying the evening. I feel her shadow like an ache upon my skin, and I know that I'm enticing. My blood should smell incredible, so very old and a warlock to boot. Warlock blood does very odd, sometimes nasty things to vampires. They can never seem to remember that however, not when they catch our scent. That is what a glamour is for however, and she can only smell lovely mortally things just slipping off me like sheets of water. Of course I've been curious before, to see what might happen to a vampire after trying to drink me, but I've never let a vampire get that close to me, except for that while that I was with Adele. That was long ago, she didn't ever drink me.

Of course, I have spent eons wondering what it might be like to die. Everyone does. Not eons per say, but more than enough of their lives. The only fact is, that they get to and I do not. I can die. I just never have. The idea of it tantalizes, to finally let my agony fall away into the pieces of my frame work. But, which every passing day, I grow more afraid. I've always clung to life. Not in the old days, in those days I lived for living. Nowadays I live to die. I've never been brave enough to lead myself to my downfall (purposefully). I have oft disputed the idea of it, of letting one's self die, of pulling the trigger. I've called it selfish. It isn't a selfish thing, not at all really. I view it more as a selfish thing for the people around you to expect you to keep living when you can't figure out how to anymore. Everyone that I ever cared about is long dead, everyone but Aesop, but sometimes I forget that we aren't the same man in two bodies. He is a soul mate.

Everything I say or do these days feels like I'm sticky. The world has no colour, the taste has gone. I'm simply struggling to find out why I'm still alive. Only because I haven't died yet, I suppose. What draws a man to the idea of death anyway? What draws a mortal to it? I've been alive so long I've forgotten what it feels like to feel young. Old men like to tell me that I can't understand until I'm older, I still don't understand. I think it's the other way around. I'll never understand. For a while, I thought that maybe when a mortal dies, their soul gets recycled. That was just a stupid, silly wish. I became stupid after Sarah. That's when the sadness washed over my shores like a lazy sickness and pulled me down to t the depths. I was unable to follow myself. Of course there had been others, other loves that came and went. I have spent life times with the loves of my life, and they have always grown old and faded from me, out of reach.

the utter horror of that is boundless. To watch them grow older everyday, or whenever you go to visit, it's terrifying. Years seem to pass quicker for me, I never have enough time. I never want to have to watch someone I love grow old. I always will. It's stunning, watching the transition of their body, knowing that this form I bare was made for that too, and never will. I have murdered thousands. Maybe it's what I deserve, it's what I want at least. The sounds of her feet get quieter as she comes after me, as if they weren't already quiet. she is growing careless in her blood lust however, and there is an alleyway just ten feet away. It occurs to me that I am being stalked, and this has happened thousands of times before with always the same outcome. But maybe tonight it will be different, if I can control myself until I am too weak to do anything about her, she could take my life as her own, and I could be done. The very thought is exciting.

Inexplicably, as I side step into an alley, after a moment's thought, my mind goes to the boy I left behind in the bar, one of many that I have surpassed. The desire to taste his lips still hides under my tongue and my fingertips still feel the warmth of his chin on them. There is a defined sadness there, in the knowledge that I will not fall in love with him. Out of all the pass times I have loved most in this world, loving has been the top. People give it freely, or not at all. Then there are those you have to quietly steal it from, like a thief, only to have your love stolen back by then. Then everything is muddled and beautiful in so many ways. Mortals are the most beautiful of creatures, and although I choose to go now, my only sadness is that I can not have more time with them. They have done terrible, aching things, yes. But they are beautiful still.

When she wraps her arms around me, I shut my eyes, trying to make it so she doesn't combust or something equally horrendous. My bodily sensors are screaming warnings, even as my heart is calm. We are delicious, the ones who give ourselves freely. When her fangs slip into my neck, I feel dull, and tired. I don't feel much at all, just the concentration of reigning myself in, and the soft sounds of her sucking me dry. It's blissful and almost painless. Soothing, in it's way. I'm happy for a moment, I am giving something life in my death. I have never given life before. A twinge of sadness unfurls it's self carefully from around my heart. her tear stained cheeks when she found herself unable. The hatred hiding beneath her fingernails, shown every time she slid her fingers down my back. I'll see Sarah soon, I hope. Maybe all of them. Or maybe she's always just been one, like me. The reason I live forever is for her. Not anymore.

Almost brutally, my salvation is yanked from me, like a puppet on a string. Disoriented and blood drained, I stumble, back hitting brick wall. Focusing proves to be difficult, the blood loss a little more than debilitating. I shake my head, trying to clear it, and run a hand through my hair, hands touching pointed ears. My glamour falls away, and I am too lazy to lift it back up. Too lazy, or too close to empty? The vampire should have finished with me within seconds, and I don't know why she's gone from me, I was ready for Death. I was calling to Death with open arms. Instead, I can feel the holes left by her teeth cover themselves up sluggishly, slower than usual. Guess my blood is slower to replenish from a vampire bite, interesting. Irritation tugs at my spine, and sends my tongue running along sharp teeth. My palms feel funny against the brick wall, as if the texture is wrong. The air feels wrong, sparking with a magic different from my own. Sparking with angel magic, the opposite of mine own darkness.

The idea has threaded it's self through my mind before, the thought that there aren't as many people out there as we think. there is always space in the after life because souls get recycled, and a life can be lived again and again. The idea that I have fallen in love with the same soul again and again thrills me and makes me sad all at once. If my life has always been spent dancing around their frame, then what is my life? Long periods of brilliant light mixed with the darkness in between. I could have waited eons more, if I knew I could see the love of my life again. But this life that I call mine is not mine, and has never been.

Blearily, I focus on the form standing in front of the vampire, and watch as he kills my salvation. A bitterness fills my lungs, her ash filling them when I breath in. Or it could be the lost end that I so desired. I am destined to walk the Earth forever, hated by all the gods. When I discover his features for the second time this night, almost laugh at the irony. Instead I giggle at his words, and say blithely, "Ooooohhh, did you cry the first time you did it too?" My words come out elongated and slurred. I did not know that near death could be so debilitating. As I move from the shadow, I put out a hand to to steady myself. The alley is spinning, and I am still not recovered. I find the wall and almost cling to it. Ignoring the silly little lifespan in front of me, I mutter, "Damnit, thought I might actually die this time. Then you just had to come along, like a knight in...shining....tattoos. Can't say armor, well, guess you could because it is a form, but it doesn't look like it."

I finally settle myself against the wall and slump down to a sitting position, the brick scratching against my back as I slip down. Small bruises form and disappear in a matter of seconds, and I groan slightly, a small mewl of pain. Shutting my eyes, I lean my head back, and wait hopefully for death still. I have not lost my wish for it with the passing of the vampire. (Yet another speck of life on my proverbial windshield). If I'm lucky, I'll die from the blood loss, but since when have I ever been lucky?

And I’ve pinned some hope to the summit of some day,
Someone somewhere may do something with this light,
But smokers lungs don’t blow balloons,
Except for once in a blue Moon,
And I’ve looked but the Moon is still white.