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When Domi drank Noé’s blood, he always kept at least one hand on her head or the back of her neck. It was reassuring to know it was still attached.
He needed that reassurance more than ever now.
He also didn’t like for anyone else to be nearby when she drank from him. It was just a personal preference, and not an unusual one since most vampires found it more polite to take care of this business in private, but he simply couldn’t relax if someone was with them while she drank.
Recently, he had thought he was alone, but he felt that he wasn’t.
…
Noé held Domi’s neck as she drank from him. She was quiet today, with her lips closed entirely around the flesh above his collarbone to ensure every bit of Noé’s blood would be hers, none wasted.
He thought about drinking some of her blood, too, but he didn’t really feel like doing it today. If she asked, he would.
For now, he sank into the feeling of being drained. His face was hot, his breathing irregular. When Domi’s tongue pressed against his skin, coaxing more blood out, his fingers twitched.
The fog in his mind increased. He became lightheaded.
He had already felt weak before Domi approached him in the private hotel room he had asked to use for just a few hours that morning, before she placed her hands around his waist and walked him backward while speaking teasing words he could no longer remember, before his knees buckled when his calves hit the couch behind him and Domi’s embrace helped gently guide him to lay back into the cushions, before she leaned in and fastened her fangs into his skin.
Domi had come because Noé sent for her.
Noé sent for Domi because he didn’t like feeling lonely, and he didn’t know what he would do if he was alone that day.
He felt lonely because, well…
Last night…
Noé startled awake to Vanitas entering their shared hotel room, heaving for breath but shouting his name.
Initially, he was dazed, but the sight of the sky from the window startled Noé into self-awareness.
He was on the floor cuddling his blankets—he hadn’t had the opportunity to snuggle Domi or L***s in years—and it was night outside. How had he gotten here?
He mumbled to himself, sure that he had been in a cafe eating tarte tartin, but that didn’t make sense…
In the meantime, Vanitas had plopped down with an exasperated sigh. He got annoyed when Noé asked if he was okay.
Before he could think much more about how he had apparently slept the entire day away (and still felt exhausted, drained, frankly terrible ) or what had panicked Vanitas so much that he could still detect the rushing of his blood from his pounding heartbeat, Dante burst in through the window with urgent information.
From there, he was further distracted and ended up bungling an interaction with Vanitas.
He had been hungry, actually deliriously hungry, for blood.
Vanitas had not taken kindly to Noé’s solicitation that Vanitas sate his hunger.
It was like this, based on who they were as people:
Vanitas said ‘no.’ Vanitas said ‘I’ll kill you if you try.’ Vanitas had been taken from many, many times, until it seemed that everything in him had been taken and replaced over and over, until it was uncertain if he was still Vanitas at all or if he was an entirely new vessel. Vanitas was rightfully jealous of everything that belonged to him, from his flesh, to his blood, to his memories. Vanitas had been pressured into saying ‘yes’ even though he could say ‘no’ before, and now he chose ‘no,’ ‘no,’ ‘no,’ no matter what.
Noé had a different impulse.
Noé stayed quiet, or even said ‘yes.’ Noé needed people, because he had been alone before. Noé had been alone because of times he said ‘no,’ or for reasons he didn’t understand—as if it were a whim. Noé couldn’t understand whim, so perhaps it was his own fault in some way, some way that he could circumnavigate by allowing others to take from him. Noé faced silence if his answer was anything but ‘yes,’ so he chose ‘yes,’ ‘yes,’ ‘yes,’ to those who opened his skin and squeezed the edges so they could lap up every ruby drop of blood.
Noé’s uncharacteristic craving probably should have been taken as a concerning sign in combination with his excessive sleep. However, Noé was distracted, Vanitas was angry, and Dante—well, he didn’t know that much about Noé after all, and it wasn’t even really his business.
Vanitas slept elsewhere that night while Noé lay alone in the hotel room.
Alone wasn’t any good. When Noé was alone, he hurt—especially after he had done something wrong. Especially after he had said something contrary when he should have said something that would appease.
This was why he needed to have someone sleep with him, why he didn’t like to spend nights alone.
When she could, Domi never let him spend his nights alone, but she wasn’t here because she thought Vanitas was with him, and Vanitas wasn’t here because he didn’t know Noé needed him, so Noé was alone.
Alone meant hurting. It initially meant hurting inside, but that kind of hurt would hurt too much, so he did what he could to make it hurt less. To do that, he would hurt outside instead.
No cuts. No blood. Nothing that would scar, nothing that would burn, nothing that would leave a mark. Nothing that would cause damage, inconvenience someone, or become evidence in the morning’s light.
He wouldn’t leave evidence, because in the morning, it would be as if it had never happened. As if his fist had not— as if his forehead— as if he did not still ache, constantly ache, it was just a headache, it wasn’t even a headache, it was nothing, there was nothing, nothing was wrong, oh what was that down that side road? What was down those stairs?
In the morning, the night before would not exist. He would be fresh, resolved about any necessary courses of action, and insatiably curious.
Curiosity was Noé’s most constant companion. He was practiced at being curious. After all, his curiosity had been rewarded by his teacher. After all, he was often alone while his teacher was away, and it was better to entertain himself with things other than the visions of L***s on the corners of his vision.
He had tried to talk with those visions sometimes when teacher was away for an especially long time, but he was left waiting for a response for hours, so he gave up. Silence and waiting were just another form of being alone, even when someone was there.
The morning after Noé messed up, Vanitas came in through the window, giving the already-dressed Noé and his already-packed luggage a dirty look.
“I’m postponing the ride to Gevaudan for a day,” he said callously.
Noé nodded and set the luggage in his lap aside.
He had thought last night— he would not think about last night— and remembered the way others reacted to his Archiviste ability. They rejected him:
You looked at my memories without asking?
That’s creepy.
You’re creepy, Noé.
He had known. He had known, and yet he had still…
He owed Vanitas an apology.
Although…
Perhaps something was wrong with him, and that was why he had been so out of it. Surely he couldn’t have slept through the day, not when he so vividly recalled…
“Something happened to me yesterday,” Noé told Vanitas, who had started to gather up some of his items from the desk (after tossing Noé’s hat that had been left there onto the floor). “I’m sure I wasn’t in here all day yesterday. I was at a cafe with… I’m not sure who, I don’t remember, but I’m nearly certain I—”
Vanitas whipped around, gloved fists (a fist, pounding down, steady, steady, it was better to hurt this way than— ) clenched tight, tight, tight, and a vein standing out on his forehead.
“Shut. Up.”
Noé’s explanation stopped there. He would not be allowed to vindicate himself from Vanitas’ ire—not this morning, at least.
After that, Vanitas left again, and Noé was alone.
Alone, alone, weak, and still hungry—but he couldn’t eat, couldn’t. His head hurt— (no, it didn’t hurt, why would it hurt?) he felt too drowsy to make himself eat, and the very thought of food made the pit in his stomach widen unbearably.
So, he just wouldn’t eat.
He couldn’t be alone, though.
He sent a message to Domi because Dante had said she was in the area when he came last night.
“Are you almost done, Domi?” Noé asked, voice strained.
He had tried to hold out and let her take her fill, but he was really lightheaded at this point. The scent of her so near to him—her blood, which he knew the taste of better than any other flavor—was upsetting his empty stomach.
Domi took one more moment to clean Noé’s skin with her mouth before pulling away. Her mouth made a faint wet sound when it left his skin.
Although she panted for air and her cheeks flushed pink, Domi’s golden eyes were lucid when she sat back. She pulled a handkerchief out of the chest pocket on her coat and dabbed at Noé’s neck before folding it and using a clean section to press against her lips. Because she was a clean eater, the white cloth was free of red stains, only removing saliva.
“Have you had breakfast?” were the first words out of Domi’s mouth.
The question made Noé cringe inwardly, but he only shook his head.
Domi covered her mouth in a joking facsimile of shock. “Noé Archiviste going half the morning without eating? Shame on you, this can’t be right! We’ll have to make this right immediately. Get up, get up, I’m taking you to a cafe. We’ll get some coffee and pastries, my treat.” Although she was playing around as she helped Noé to his feet, she genuinely meant it when she said, “I can tell when something is upsetting my good friend. Come eat with me, and we’ll see if I can make you feel better.”
Even though he didn’t want to eat, Noé let Domi pull him off the couch, out the door, past Amelia—who he told he had finished with the room and thank you very much—and out into the sunny, bustling streets of Paris.
The movement, the interactions with people who weren’t angry or silent, the sun, and beautiful Paris that fed his curiosity so well erased Noé’s anxiety, sweeping it away as if it were only so many cobwebs that disintegrate when exposed to daylight.
Noé enjoyed a latte and a scone with Domi, then wandered around Paris for the rest of the day. Domi trotted along at his heels, letting him lead the way as his fancy struck him and listening to him chatter with a smile and some well-placed wry comments and retorts.
The next day, Noé apologized to Vanitas.
He had been wrong to ask Vanitas for anything—especially for something that, because of what Noé was, was so invasive.
Vanitas accepted the olive branch of peace extended to him and reluctantly extended one of his own, allowing Noé to walk alongside him again, laughing with him, teasing him, grinning around his own hidden pains.
…
The both of them, they were crutches wrought with too many faults. If one leaned on the other, they would both crumble down, down. They would crumble if they stood alone, as well, after a time.
At least if they leaned, they could crumble together.