Single Handedly

[suneater]

If Matteo weren’t so thrilled to be immortal, he might have been miffed. Antonio should have been welcoming him into the fold, not dictating logistics. Yes, the woman had to be dealt with, but it wasn’t as if they had throngs waiting for rooms to open up. He could move his things when it was convenient. As he considered it, he didn’t much care about his things at the moment. He was hungry, or at least, that was the best word he had for it. Instead of a gnawing feeling in his stomach, it was a gnawing feeling throughout his whole body that continuously frayed his attention.

The only thing that stood a chance of rivaling his hunger was Lazzaro. His sire was a beacon of emotion. Blazing anger gave way to annoyance, and then even more annoyance. At first he thought the feelings were his own, but he managed to untangle the skeins of them and realize that they were foreign. He knew nothing of the bond he now shared with the ancient, but couldn’t help but feel an echo of what his sire felt.

Lazzaro’s words certainly affected him. The order was nearly an iron-clad command, the way his mind and body reacted. His posture stiffened, and he was just about to march off as instructed when Pietro interrupted. The near-compulsion was still there, but the distraction helped him separate himself from it. That was not a part of the bargain he’d been anticipating, and he frowned faintly while the three vampires, each a pillar of his existence in one way or another, deliberated.

Matteo padded silently to his discarded shirt and pulled it on, leaving it open to expose his slim torso. The load that Lazzaro had coaxed for him was very much dry now, and looked almost like peeling skin. He watched the man stoop and maneuver the corpse of his follower into his arms, then swung to lead the way to his room. Doing so caused them to pass the seated Antonio, and Matteo did so without so much as a word or glance.

“I’ll be just a moment,” he intoned to Lazzaro. He’d performed a mental inventory, and there really wasn’t much to contend with. He’d been away from the nest for quite a while on assignment, and only just moved back in. He’d decluttered considerably before leaving. He pulled the door open and slipped inside. He emptied drawers into a duffel bag, then added some hygiene items and pieces of jewelry. His cell phone, powered down whenever he was in the nest, he slid into his pocket. There were a few fashion magazines on his night stand, but he’d already read them- they went into the garbage. So too did a painted poster of a beach scene. His mouth curled. He didn’t need any reminders that he’d never see the sun again. Of all the parts of the price he was paying, that was no doubt the greatest.

He zipped the bag up and hefted it, marveling at the ease of the act. He would have struggled beneath its weight not half an hour ago. He assumed there would be bed-linens in his new room, so he left those. All that remained was the mirror - a fairly cheap unit meant to be affixed to the back of the door. He had never gotten around to it, though, so it simply leaned against some vacant wall. He tucked it under his other arm and strode back into the hall.

“I will drop this off, and then we can dis-” He caught himself, practically conditioned by the flash of anger he’d felt at Antonio’s choice of words before. “-err, lay your friend to rest, that is,” he finished diplomatically. He strode past Lazzaro as if what he carried were no encumbrance at all, leading the way to the room they would share.

[Trillian]

Cuddling Kate to his chest was comforting in many ways. He couldn't look at her, how her neck had given her an unnatural ragdoll effect. Every time he saw it out of the corner of his eye he would be swamped with impotent anger. He remained in the corridor, aware that her scent of life had faded and had already turned into the atrocity of death. He didn't want to think about her smells, even though they were assaulting his nose.

He didn't know why Matteo was taking so long. Anything longer than half a minute was too long. Anything beyond a full minute was achieving temporal ridiculousness. When his fledgeling returned with a bag and a mirror in hand, Lazarus reversed his steps back to the chamber but he paused at the kitchen/dining doorway on the way.

"Get in there and grab me a bottle of olive oil," he said, his tone flat. Lazarus was focussed on his task at hand. "A bag of flour if you can't find oil," he added, his gaze burning into the young man, not wanting to have to explain himself.

[suneater]

A mute, smoldering rage and needling annoyance had spurred Matteo out of his former bedroom. He still felt elation. Every step was an exercise in the power he had been gifted- no, the power that he had earned. Perhaps he hadn’t come by it in exactly the manner he’d been imagining for months now, but he had it. Antonio had been the center of his universe for so very long, but now that he’d been cast out of that particular orbit… well, the world seemed a much wider place, teeming with potential.

He blinked his tidal eyes at the command, but his body was already reacting. Olive oil? Flour? They were hiding a corpse, not baking bread. Despite his many questions about the grocery list, he had already padded into the dining area. He headed toward the kitchen and pantry. After setting his bag down on a counter and leaning the tall mirror against the nearby wall, he oriented himself and located the dry goods. He stood before the counter in front of the high cupboards and judged the distance. Carefully, he leapt, landing neatly on his bare feet in an easy crouch. He stood and began rifling through the densely packed shelves.

Once upon a time, he had been familiar with a kitchen. He’d been awed by his mother’s skills, in the magic involved in turning various ingredients into delicious fare. As he handled and inspected a variety of such ingredients, he found himself not caring in the slightest about them. There was cereal, coffee, sugar… he found himself reacting not at all. None of it compared to the memory of the taste that had brought him back from the brink of death.

Lazzaro’s irritation buzzed about him like a cloud of flies. He snapped out of his thoughtfulness and seized a slender, unmarked bottle of olive oil. No need for the flour. He hopped down again and unzipped his bag, stuffing the bottle part-way in. Shouldering the strap and tucking the mirror under his arm once more, he trotted back out. His nose wrinkled when he spotted Kate’s remains lolling about in Lazzaro’s stunted grasp.

“This way,” he said, tone clipped, as he marched toward their allotted room.

[Trillian]

Lazarus followed the youngling to their shared room. He ignored the floaters and hangers on who'd wanted to talk to him. It was easy enough to as he wielded Kate's corpse through the corridors, nobody seemed willing to approach him after getting an eyeful of her along with his murderous expression. In all honesty the anger was starting to dissipate now. He could feel Matteo's euphoria batting at the outside of his own emotions and the fledge could at least follow basic instructions. There was also something going on between him and Antonio that he wanted to understand better.

Once they arrived at the room assigned to them, Lazarus dawdled as Matteo opened the door and entered. Instead of following the youth inside he remained just outside the doorway and looked into a room that could belong to any hotel. Neutral painted walls over dark wooded half-panels, a couple of paintings that shared a subject of a medieval festival of some kind, a queen-sized bed with matching end-tables and a two-seater sofa. No bathroom, no kitchenette, but otherwise a room as bland as Pietro's personality.

"Grab the oil and show me another way out of here," he said softly, his tone shifting to one of resignation. "I don't want to carry her through the fucking library." He recalled that there used to be a tunnel that exited into a sewer or a dry aquaduct or whatever it was supposed to be that didn't have a lot of people around. There was another entry and exit as well.

He cast an eye over Matteo's clothes, at the dried semen on his chest and the dried blood on his chin. He was a mess. Lazarus didn't want to waste time waiting for him to change but it might be a good idea for him to do so.

[suneater]

Matteo sauntered along, just ahead of Lazzaro. His hip-swiveling walk had apparently survived the transition from human to vampire. He wore a dreamy, fangy smile as he passed through the residents of the nest who had yet to disperse following his ascension. How was it that so many of the vampires he knew were always so damn morose? Damnation, if that was what this was, seemed to suit the youth. He was happy to return a few nods of acknowledgment, and couldn't help but note the way that his former peers regarded him. Some of the mortals bore signs of jealousy; they'd been there longer and not been made. Others watched him with interest. These were the ones addicted to the bite, likely wondering what his might be like. The smartest among them expressed the same reservation as most of the vampires, waiting to see where the political fallout settled before openly taking a position.

His brief study of the herd reaffirmed his hunger. It dug its claws just a little deeper, and for a dizzying instant the whole world was throats and heartbeats. He almost missed a step, but caught himself. It was all he could do not to drop his effects and launch himself at the nearest of them. Fortunately, he had Lazzaro at his side. His sire's presence was not particularly reassuring, but it was extremely distracting. He seemed to be rapidly shunting through all of the stages of grief, and that admixture of sorrow and strife was enough to tug his thoughts back to the matter at hand.

He settled his bag down on the sofa, then leaned the mirror against the wall. He was glad he'd saved it- there wasn't one among the meager furnishings. He paused to stare at his reflection. His eyes were by far the most striking change- they were like ancient sapphires, dark and cold but still glittering. His hair was an actual mess, not the artful sort he preferred, so he quickly ran a hand through it to sooth the worst of the disarray. His lower face was streaked with the dark rust of dried blood. He opened his mouth, leaning forward to inspect his newly pronounced canines, and then wheeled at Lazzaro's sudden command.

That was already getting old- both the fact that the man only seemed to speak in edicts (not unlike Antonio), and that he was seemingly wired to obey. He dug into the bag, tugging out a pair of sandals which he dropped to the floor and then stepped into. He absently plucked the bottle from where he'd tucked it in his duffel, tossing it into the air with a flourish like a bartender at a fancy cocktail venue and catching it easily on his way back to the door. He paused beneath Laz's scrutiny, cocking an eyebrow. "What? You're the one who did it." The ability to defy was pleasantly surprising; it meant his will was not completely suborned. He decided to test it further.

"According to the rules you'll need to escort me to wash up. It's this way."

He tossed the bottle from hand to hand as he moved to the left, out into the main corridor that formed a horse-shoe around the residential rooms and main hall. At one end was the dining area, and at the other, the bath facilities. It was a longer route than simply cutting across the hall, but he wanted to stretch his legs a bit, so to speak. He entered and trotted to the bay of sinks to clean up a bit. Little expense had been spared for this portion of the nest. The counters and floors were a pleasant pink marble. Three walls of the washroom were taken up by sinks and basins, and to Matteo's great delight, those walls were dominated by spotless mirrors. There was room enough for a third of the nest to perform ablutions at any given moment.

The washroom led off in two directions. One contained toilets that he'd never need again, and the other contained the showers and baths. He would have liked to take a bath, just then. He wondered if Lazzaro would join him for one after the deed was done. He considered the vampire's lean frame, and could easily imagine him stretched out in one of the hot tubs. Yes, that would have to happen sooner rather than later.

He wet a cloth with hot water and scrubbed the dried jizz from his chest easily enough. His mouth was a taller order. It took some effort to remove every last tinge of red from his flesh, and by the time he'd finished he felt abraded. He inspected himself carefully in the mirror to ensure that he was spotless, then fluttered his fingers up his shirt, reluctantly buttoning it. He left the top three undone, then returned to Lazzaro. He'd been carefully ignoring the feelings of irritation emanating from the corridor.

"This way," he chirped cheerfully, flashing a grin. He tucked the bottle of olive oil under his arm and made his way back down the corridor, towards the stairs that led to the nest's main entrance.

[Trillian]

Kate didn't weigh anything because of his strength; she was paper in his hold. But at the same time she had mattered to him, and he was getting impatient making her wait. He'd obliged Matteo his time in the bathroom but he'd shifted his weight and huffed a few times outside the bathing area before the fledge came back out.

Right now Matteo was little more than a guide to him. Some nobody who'd been assigned to him to help him make his way about the place. Until Kate's body was delivered to her resting place, that was all he would be. His inconvenience would come later, Lazarus knew. He didn't dwell on it, instead following the young creature and vaguely aware of how the other walked with a lilt to his hips. A few hours ago Lazarus would've thought that body prime for the taking - he'd certainly appreciated it on the way to the tank - but now he just wanted that body to get him the fastest way out.

They were heading back to the stairs, as far as Lazarus could tell. The closer they got, the more he primed his lips, turning his mouth into a thin slash of aggravation before Matteo made a sharp turn away from the stairs that were only just around the corner and slipping into a passage Lazarus had barely noticed was there. When the blond Ancient followed he had to twist himself around to knock Kate's legs or head into the wall. It was a narrow doorway into what looked like an unfinished underground construction where metal beams showed in between packed earth walls. He followed Matteo's almost silent footfalls until they were moving up a ramp and then through another doorway, this one better lit. A maze of turns in a tight building space later and they were in a courtyard of an abandoned building. In the middle of the courtyard was a fountain that wasn't working and held no water.

"This will do," Lazarus said, loathe to go anywhere else even though this felt too open. He placed Kate's body gently at the foot of the fountain, righted her head so it wasn't angled weirdly, adjusted her hands and legs. He went through her pockets until he found the keychain she'd kept even after selling her decrepit van - the one with the duck. He pocketed it and gave Matteo side-eye before reaching a hand out.

"Give me the bottle."

[suneater]

Matteo seemed intimately familiar with the route. It was actually even easier to navigate with his new eyes. What would have been variations of darkness before now stood clearly outlined to him. He wondered idly if he was strong enough to use the main entrance yet, or if that would come in time. He would have to find an opportunity to test his enhanced body at some point soon.

He glanced up at the night sky as they emerged in the courtyard, feeling the weight of the moon overhead. He recalled dimly from a middle school science class that moonlight was actually reflected sunlight. This was the most of the sun that he would ever experience again. He couldn't help but wonder why sunlight by proxy wasn't a danger. Was it just too diffuse to cause harm? Or was there some other more mystical reason, some transformation that happened in the filtering that science couldn't detect.

Teo offered the bottle to him, shifting his attention to the corpse. He wanted to ask about her - who she had been, what she meant to him, why on earth he had brought her with him to the nest - but he was more curious about the olive oil, and about how Lazzaro planned to use it to make her body disappear. He remained silent, ready to assist.

[Trillian]

Lazarus took the bottle and unscrewed it, breaking the seal. He had a litre to work with and knew it should be enough. He bent over her and set the bottle down onto the ground so he could unzip her jacket. Once her light cotton shirt was exposed he poured a large amount on her chest and stomach then made lines with it down her legs for the flames to follow once he set her alight, also flinging some oil on her face though he could barely look at what he was doing at that point. He set the bottle down and stood up.

There was a cigarette pack in his jeans pocket. He fished it out and peered in. It was half-filled with cigarettes but he was after the lighter. He stared at it now - a cheap plastic sort that could be found at any corner shop or gas station. He shook the pack enough for the lighter to pop halfway out and squished the pack with his left forearm as he plucked the lighter out.

Bending down once more he flicked the lighter on and held the flame to the bottom of Kate's shirt, feeling like a heel. It went out before he had a chance to light it. Lazarus swore and flicked it again, spinning the wheel three times before the flame returned. He had success on his second try - her shirt blackened then caught the flame and spread. Lazarus hurried backwards as the flames raced across the oil and covered her body quickly - though it wouldn't burn faster than the norm. He needed a bigger blaze for that. He tucked his cigarette lighter back into the pack and then put the pack away.

Turning, he stalked through the courtyard towards one of the large planters that dotted the corners and ripped out one of the overgrown plants that was in them, forcing it out roots and all from the soil. Wordlessly he brought it back to Kate and tossed it on the growing pyre. It was started to smell like a barbecue but he wasn't bothered by it. He went back for more burning material instead, but paused to deliver an instruction to Matteo.

"You'll get to feed when this is done. There are plants behind you," he gestured. He didn't stop to look if his new fledge was helping him. He moved around the courtyard plucking plants and anything that could burn. When he found some broken furniture in the far corner of the yard he took it to Kate's funeral pyre and heaped it on. It was getting very hot now and he flinched away from the flames as they consumed her body.

He had no idea how long it would take for Kate to finish burning. It was only now that he thought maybe he should've made a pyre farther away from the Nido's second exit. Fuck it, he wanted her close.

"C'mon, let's go get a meal while she's burning," Lazarus said, looking around for Matteo to see where he was. When his fledge drew near he grabbed Matteo's hand and led them away from the bonfire and out of the building into the narrow street. As Antonio said, the night was still young and there were many people around them. They were in a semi-residential area, with small apartment buildings around. The smell of the bonfire would hopefully be dismissed as someone else's barbecue.

What Lazarus would usually do when needing a drink (and he needed one after making Matteo - creation always left him with a craving) was to knock on a door and muscle into the residence of whoever lived there, often killing them if they weren't sexually appealing or converting them to perform whatever act he wanted from them. The problem with this tactic is that the Nido wouldn't let him stay if he started murdering people randomly (it had been a bone of contention between himself and Antonio a long time ago) and it would also draw attention. He didn't want to shit where he lived.

"Alright, where's a street corner for boys to sell their bodies?" Lazarus asked Matteo before they left the street they were on. It was the easiest way to pull someone to drink from and he had a handy lure in this waif.

[suneater]

Matteo was watching in confusion when his sire paused to deliver... well it wasn't quite an order, but it might as well have been one. The prospect of more blood was all the enticement he needed to hop to attention and begin tugging at a mostly-dead shrub. Despite the power etched into his muscles know by Lazzaro's blood, he still had a bit of a tough time with it. The sight of his struggle might be a bit comical to a bystander, if there were any. He squatted down for leverage and heaved... and when the soil finally gave way and the roots tore free, he ended up stumbling backwards. He moved his feet in a rapid, strange little dance that managed to keep him from planting his ass on the dirty ground.

Looking almost sheepish, he jogged to the body. He stopped cold when he got within a couple meters of it, though. The flames weren't even respectable yet, but the sight of them transfixed him. In a start contrast to their heat, he was suddenly filled with cold, instinctual fear. His nostrils flared and then he wrinkled his nose. The scent of burning flesh and hair was overwhelming, and he'd not yet learned to compensate for his enhanced senses. It was then that he remembered that he didn't need to breath. He stopped filling his lungs and stepped cautiously forward, tossing his armful of dry vegetation toward the flame-licked corpse. It didn't have the mass required to behave as he'd intended, though. It bounced off and then rolled back off of her body to sit unscathed on the ground beside it.

A weary frown darkened his features and he crept forward slowly. He knew that fire was a bane to vampires, but his body and blood seemed to insist upon it. He picked up the shrub once more and stepped in closer- close enough to feel the heat- and then laid it out across what was left of her gently, diagonally, so that it would make contact with the plant matter Lazarus had strewn over her. The brittle, dry would caught and burned quickly, and that intensity began igniting the other, half-dead greenery.

Relief ebbed through him as he backed away. He was a bit puzzled by the whole process. Olive oil was a terrible accelerant. He'd been expecting Lazzaro to do something clever or magical with it, but instead, it seemed like borderline incompetence. He would have to ask later. Surely there must be a reason he'd chosen to dispose of his follower this way. If there wasn't, it didn't bode well for Matteo.

He crossed the courtyard to a window that had been boarded up and slipped his fingers between the gap between two planks. Bracing one foot on the wall, he surged backward viciously. The rusty nails that fixed it to the window frame gave way with a faint screech. Matteo repeated the process, and then brought the wood to the burgeoning fire. Between them and the furniture, it might actually last long enough to take her down to bone, but then there would still be bones to deal with. Did Lazzaro intend to keep them? Or would he... what? Strew them throughout the city, bury them in the yard?

His thoughts were cut short when Lazzaro took his hand and began pulling him away from the fire. Distance was welcome, but Laz would feel a turbulent wave off confusion roil off his fledge as they exited. They couldn't possibly simply leave the body there. What if someone found it? What if one of the members of the nest emerged and saw that they were being so incautious? Was this some kind of test, of him? To see if he would simply let Lazzaro have his way even if his way was pure idiocy?

He found it difficult to put his concerns to words. It was close enough to disobeying that it made him feel a terrible weight seem to press in upon him from all sides. When Lazzaro asked him about street corners though, he pulled to a stop, or tried to, at least; it wasn't as if he could arrest the ancient in the slightly if Laz didn't let him.

His first instinct was to ask if Laz was some sort of moron, but that was almost impossible, fortunately. His scorn was likely evident across the bond, but what he finally said was much more tactful. "I think we should wait. Ensure no one finds her before it is done. An-" Why had his voice caught? "Antonio does not appreciate carelessness. And..." The idea formed wholly, on its own, but he realized it was a good one. "And shouldn't we be there? For her?" There was a thoroughly boyish, somewhat pleading quality in his voice. It was a tone he was well-practiced in using, and to good effect, on older men. In truth he could care less about the woman's last rites, but Lazzaro was clearly attached to him somehow, and if it took appealing to his emotions to get him to behave rationally, then Matteo was far from above it.

[Trillian]

Lazarus stopped when Matteo did, but at the requests he narrowed his eyes.

Antonio does not appreciate carelessness

Those words struck deep in his core. Of course, his fledge had no idea that 'careless' was an oft-used word flung his way when Lazarus had been a part of the Nido first time around. Antonio had bludgeoned him with it, initially with passive-aggressive questions finishing with direct accusations.

Careless. Fickle. Selfish. Ignorant.

Lazarus had laughed them off each time but they'd stung. Now they were in his face again, through a mediator that belonged to him. He'd felt every twang of dismay, every brush of contempt along their shared bloodline. Matteo had no secrets, no personal space or mind. This was as close a connection as two people would ever get. Lazarus had been quick to learn that sex with his newly-made fledgelings created a feedback loop of pleasure. It was why he'd made so many of them and why he chose those that were enamoured with him.

He wanted to strike out at Matteo's cunning face, to swat him and send him flying into the wall opposite. He fisted his hand and released it before he held Matteo gently by the chin with thumb and forefinger, tilting his face to an angle where Matteo could appreciate the night sky so he could make his point.

"I can easily wait for two hours, maybe three until that fire burns out. How about you, uccellino? Can you sit still and deny your thirst?" He thought 'baby bird' made a good nickname for little Matteo, with his big eyes and annoying peeping.

[suneater]

Matteo froze in Laz's one-handed grasp. The touch was gentle, yes, but he had no illusions that Lazzaro couldn't maim him with just a thumb and finger. He'd felt the revulsion, the anger, the desire to cause pain. In the end, what would it cost the ancient to unmake him? He would be unable to return to the nest, but did he even want to? Laz would feel the needles of fear flying off him as his chin was manipulated, filling his vision with the purple-black banner of sky above them.

The question was a valid one. His hunger was a tiger stalking back and forth in far too small a cage. The idea of denying himself blood as early and often as possible was almost incomprehensible. He tried his best to consider it earnestly, but he couldn't detach himself enough from the situation to do so. Laz's touch hardly helped. He found that he craved it. He wanted that hand to stroke his hair while Lazzaro called him his baby bird, yes. The endearment appealed, but it also reminded him of Kate's fate- of the way her head had been twisted around like an owl's.

He ducked away and started back toward the building. His walk was naturally quite mincing, with a hint of sway to his hips, but he amplified the effect in a way that he knew called quite a bit of attention to his pert little butt. He pushed his hands into his pockets in a way that looked casual but was actually just intended to keep them from shaking.

"I guess we will find out, but you know the rule." He'd managed to due a remarkable facsimile of his usual imperious tone, but through the bond, Laz would know it for the bluster it was. "We have to stay together. If you want to leave, you'll have to carry me."

He looked over his shoulder at Lazzaro, his heavy-lidded eyes evincing none of the fear he so obviously felt. He wasn't sure he would have been able to pull this off if Laz had commanded him, but he hadn't, and that was that. "This is not how I imagined any of this would go, but if you won't tend to our status then one of us must."

[Trillian]

It was just as well that Lazarus felt the contradiction in his blood bond with Matteo, otherwise he would've been insulted. He recognised the intelligence of his fledgeling's statement, to keep Antonio happy. He had no doubt that if he caused trouble that he would be thrown out again. Kate's sacrifice would have been for nothing and he didn't want that for her.

When they returned to the middle of the courtyard, the bonfire he'd created was at its highest. He didn't want to look at it or smell it, so he moved away from the smoke as the wind pushed it to the north, swirling it into nothingness as it blended with the air. He could sense some people nearby but they were too far away to be able to see what was burning beneath the wood they'd placed over Kate's corpse. He went back to scrounging for more wood and found another boarded up window to remove boards from. His strength made them easy to pull off from their fixings.

The blaze he created was one he and Matteo had to stand a fair distance away from. They watched it together until it died down, leaving behind a pile of ashes and only a few bones. After digging a hole in the planters to bury the leftover bones in (and debating whether or not to put the duck keyring with it eventually deciding that Kate should have it back) Lazarus could feel the incessant craving for blood - making a new vampire always left him thirsting and requiring a top-up. He glanced at his newest youngling and saw the desperate quality in his eyes. Not a surprise. They'd been here for four hours and Matteo was looking feral.

"You won't attract anybody looking like that," Lazarus said, his voice quiet but not gentle. He moved to Matteo and lifted his wrist to his mouth, opening his skin once again with a strong bite, ripping a gash in his arm for the youngling to feed from. "Drink," he commanded.

Whether Matteo wanted to or not, he drank. He was too much in his primal state to do anything else. Lazarus grunted the pain of having the young vampire latch on and could feel himself being drawn on. Eventually he gave a new order, but he had to give it twice before it seeped through. "Stop. I said stop!" he yelled.

Reclaiming his arm and feeling like he could drink from three or four donors now in order to feel normal, he grabbed Matteo with his only hand and walked with him at a quick march out.

"Go somewhere you can pick up," he said. "I'll be nearby and we can both feed from them. Don't you dare make a fucking move except to take them towards me."

[suneater]

Matteo watched the flames from a distance for a time, but his attention inevitably veered back to Lazzaro.

He studied his sire in the unsteady rush of light. All he had were questions, but some sense, likely the same force that sluiced Laz's emotions into him, told him that now was not the time. He had scored a minor victory with his defiance, and pushing would only make that meaningless. Besides, he had eternity to obtain his answers about Kate, and the missing hand, and his past with Antonio and Pietro, and a million other things beside. This arrogant, short-sighted creature had been alive for as long as Christianity; even if he was a bit of a fool, he was no doubt a very interesting fool.

After the first hour, his hunger asserted itself more emphatically. Irritability gave way to silent, sullen rage, which became something else altogether. His thoughts fell into primal patterns. Every time the sounds of human lives intruded on the courtyard - usually just distant footsteps, but occasionally distant voices - Matteo's head whipped in that direction, his new eyes wide, drinking in moonlight, nostrils flaring, fingers curved to mimic talons. He began to pace, needing to move to abate the rawness of his need. The movements were not at all human. He had the air of a trapped predator, indolent but dangerous.

His gaze snapped to Lazarro at the vampire's words. It took a few seconds for him to register the sounds as speech. He tensed, ready to fight or flee when the ancient moved toward him, but then surged forward to grasp Laz's arm and fit his mouth against the wound. His drinking was frenzied at first, sloppy, but after he had his first gulp his conscious mind reasserted itself. He drank more gently (though it was hardly gentle), his own delicate-looking hands holding Laz at the elbow and wrist, as if his radius and ulna were a giant ear of corn.

He felt the brutal tug of the command to stop, and finally pulled away, pouting, when it came again. His lips were slightly smeared with blood from the initial assault, but his tongue made quick work of that. "Thank you," he murmured, sounding almost drugged. He didn't resist at all when Laz dragged him along. As they walked, he felt the urge to lace his fingers through Lazzaro's, but resisted it.

He simply nodded at the instructions and then sauntered off in the direction they had been going. He pushed his hands into his pockets and adopted a rolling gait, replete with swagger, that was not uncommon for boys who sold their bodies. There was a peacockishness required to the role, to attract the attention of a potential patron. His lips pulled into an easy, distracted smile, but his eyes remained aloof. He could almost sense Laz nearby - maybe behind him? - but he did not seek him out. By all appearances, he was just a young man on his way for a night on the town.

He wound his way through the narrow streets, eventually bringing them to a small park. He'd been walking for perhaps a quarter hour, but could already feel the hunger mounting. The park itself was not an ideal place for dalliances, but men would sometimes cruise there and retire elsewhere to do the deed. He could have gone to one of the bars he knew, but that might prove difficult. Yes, there would be a plethora of prey, but most of them would know him, recognize him, want to talk, catch up. The thought of being trapped in a conversation while hearts beat and pulsed around him was daunting. He doubted he had the control to pull it off.

No, this was better. More manageable, more safe. He entered the park and slowed his pace. There had been periods when policemen paid attention to this place, but he saw no evidence of that being the case right now. After a few minutes of wending his way along the manicured path, he wondered if he might need to seek out greener pastures. The place was vacant. There was a peacefulness to it. The sounds of the city were faint at this hour, and the bulwark of carefully maintained greenery dulled them further.

"Teo?"

A familiar voice tugged at his attention. Distracted, he wheeled, perhaps a touch to fast. Elisio.

The other boy jogged forward and came in for a hug. Matteo accepted it, smiling uncertainly. Elisio was not strictly a whore. He was a student, with vaguely-described parents who paid for the minimum. He liked nice things, though, as evidenced by the gleaming, chunky gold watch on his wrist and designer cut of his clothes. He was absolutely beautiful, Matteo had to admit. What time he had that wasn't spent studying, partying, or fucking was spent at the gym, yielding the sort of body that Teo had always envied just slightly.

"It's been ages!" Elisio laughed and stepped back. He favored an artful stubble these days, apparently. Standing nearly a head taller than Teo, he looked down, grinning. "What have you been up to?"

Matteo shrugged and mirrored the grin. A tactic came to him. "I'm being kept," he lied easily. He forced himself to tear his eyes away from Elisio's throat. "He's rich, and hung like Ignazio." They both laughed; Ignazio was somewhat legendary for the size of his member. Despite his sporty look, Teo knew that Elisio was an irredeemable bottom. "We're actually looking for some company... if you're interested?"

Elisio's eyebrows hedged upward. He was obviously skeptical, or at least confused. Why would Matteo be here to find a third, when there were so many more lively places to look? "He lives nearby," Matteo cut in quickly, before adding an appeal to Elisio's nostalgia and vanity. His eyes, so deeply blue now, widened boyishly. He reached out to take one of Elisio's hands in both of his. "It will be fun. Like old times. And I know he'll like you." He laughed, self-consciously. "He's always saying I need more muscle on me." He kept hold with one hand, but the other slide up Elisio's forearm to give his bicep a squeeze.

Elisio considered for a few seconds, then broke into a wide grin. "Rich and hung, you say?"

Matteo released Elisio's hand and playfully swatted his butt. "It's a little obscene. You'll be walking like a crone tomorrow. And he's not even too ugly." Elisio slipped his arm around Teo's shoulder, and Teo fit himself against the other boy, looping his own arm around Elisio's waist. He started walking, steering him out of the park and towards the nearby residential area. It was a plausible neighborhood for a wealthy man, and the streets were dark and quiet. Matteo wasn't sure where Lazzaro was, so he just ambled along, catching up. He lied fluently about his own activities, describing how he had met this fictional patron and the piano lessons he was being treated to. All the while, his hunger writhed inside of him. Being close to Elisio's warm body was sweet agony.

[Trillian]

Lazarus liked what Matteo had brought back for them. Nothing he was allowed to kill. If this had been his own turf, he wouldn't have killed him anyway. Played with him for a while, maybe keep him a few nights and then move on. The catch was too pretty to destroy.

He was in the shadows near the mouth of an alley. The pair were going to walk past him. Matteo would feel Lazarus' presence and so he slunk farther back, shouldering the wall a little way up for the pair to move past him. He could hear the words Matteo said as he turned his friend into the alley.

Lazarus didn't have any skills available to him. Unlike his other newly-made fledge, Murphy, who had a knack for soothing his prey, Lazarus relied only on the physical. It had been a long time before he'd experienced a proper craving. Making Matteo and feeding his little uccellino a second time had taken a toll on him.

He stepped in front of them, like oil atop water. With liquid grace and rapid movement - the kind only Matteo would be able to follow - he snatched the mortal out of the fledgeling's grasp and pressed Elisio against the alley brick wall, using his entire body to do so and covering the mortal's mouth with his forearm.

He bit without preamble, letting the shock keep Elisio rigid before he started fighting back. Lazarus would thank Matteo later for getting him a muscled, bigger young man to feed from. He would drink until Elisio was dazed, to a point where he would struggle to remember what had happened to him. It was a tactic Lazarus had done often.

[suneater]

Elisio was in the midst of describing a recent vacation he'd been given, to Greece, when Matteo felt Lazzaro's presence nearby. He couldn't pinpoint him, but he could certainly feel him. The hunger roiling off of Lazzaro was unmistakable, and stoked his own to new heights. Every muscle in his body was tense in anticipation, and he found it difficult to concentrate on anything other than containing his thirst for blood. It was all he could do to stick to the plan, to wait, when all he could think about was climbing Elisio like a tree and drinking his fill or more.

He had been expecting it to happen fast, but Lazzaro's speed was terrifying. Even with vampiric eyes, Matteo could only just follow his movements. A casual observer might have thought that the tall, handsome youth at Matteo's side had simply disappeared. His shock was short-lived. His hunger consumed it in an instant. Matteo took a single glance around to ensure there were no witnesses and then stalked to join his sire.

Despite their shared history and the one-time similarity of their circumstances, Matteo felt not even a pang of remorse as he watched Lazzaro feed. He felt only his hunger. Even with Lazzaro's practiced bite, he could smell the blood. Human blood. The scent was different than Lazzaro's- a little cleaner, lighter, more sweet. Any self-control he had eroded before Lazzaro had swallowed two mouthfuls. With a feral hiss, Matteo bounded forward and insinuated himself into the predatory embrace.

His hands closed on the fabric of Elisio's shirt so that he could pull himself up onto his tip-toes to drink. He tucked himself up against the older boy's flank to give himself access to the side of his neck that wasn't currently occupied. His own need and Lazzaro's in such proximity created something of a feedback loop, driving him almost mad with giddy hunger. Wide-eyed and unaware of the lustful erection that had formed in his shorts and now jutted against Elisio's hip, he lunged and bit.

Instinct guided him well enough, but the bite wasn't clean. He didn't quite pierce the jugular in one go, and had to bite again, adjusting his grip for better purchase. The result was a somewhat messy wound rather than the two neat punctures a proper bite would leave. He pressed his mouth against the hole he'd rent in Elisio's throat and let the blood pour into his mouth. He swallowed greedily, again and again and again. His eyes remained wide open, but he barely registered what he was seeing. The rest of the world faded to muted gray shapes. All that mattered was the blood.

The taste was different, but that only barely occurred to him, and he wasn't thinking clearly enough to compare it to the vampiric blood he'd sampled. He would continue to drink until Elisio ran dry or Lazzaro intervened. He wasn't prepared for how powerful his hunger would be, nor how enjoyable it would be to satisfy it.