@duderosiers
Augustin had visited many supernatural communities over the course of his long life. He may not remember every name or face that had crossed his path but Erzsebet’s was certainly the nicest of the blood bars he’d visited. Not having to worry about food was a considerable weight off his shoulders. It removed the guilt he often associated with the necessary task, not to mention an air of normalcy he never thought he’d experience with feeding. He wasn’t quite a regular–too new to the community to be such, but he imagined every vampire within the town’s limits became a regular at Erzsebet.
The hour was late still, perhaps early to some–bit of a strange line to walk. Whatever it was to be called, it was still dark out. The town had a small nightlife, nothing to hold a candle to the neon signs and crowded streets of a city but it was considerable all the same.
He’d gone back to the motel and freshened up. Showered. Changed into something not only more comfortable but something more…presentable.
The sooner his living situation got sorted, the better.
There’s something else there, something else nagging at him that he can’t for the life of him put his finger on. Something within pulled forward, pulled impossibly taut; worst of all the closer he came to the establishment the tighter it became. To the point that it felt it was the thing pulling him forward–maybe in another life, what scant memories he could recall of it, someone with talent would pluck at the string. An instrument of beauty rather than a source of stress.
Pulling the door open he slips inside and if possible, the sensation within grows worse. One gloved hand moves to absently press against his breast while he enters. As if his touch alone could soothe the impossible sensation within, he tries to offer a wan smile towards the bar as he approaches but…
Something stops him.
Another something with no name, that thread pulled taut and trembling round his throat and it’s as though a hand touches upon his skull to steer his attention to the side. He’s stopped somewhere between the entry and the bar standing in what one could consider an open space, feeling an awful lot like the fox looking for the hound at its tail (a memory, a memory of the howling and the fierce glow of a hunt) and there’s…there’s someone there.
A man is seated at one of the booths within, a man who he knows but doesn’t know–not a man in the classic sense but a man shaped thing like him. Vampire. The string loops around his throat stealing away his nonexistent breath and there’s a series of memories prompted to the forefront of his mind. Augustin has had a lot of memories in his long, long, impossibly long life. Time did steal them away the farther back he reached, only coming to him in bits and pieces. Names he couldn’t quite recall alongside faces he couldn’t hope to remember right.
This man, this vampire, this face—he knew them. The faded details of his memory struggling to connect the dots whilst that thread of something screamed at him. There was a roaring in his ears that had nothing to do with blood nor hunger (the fox eyes white with fear desperately searching; weren’t you supposed to be the hound, blue blood?). Keen eyes make out the details desperately trying to line up the pieces, overlaying over memory that stubbornly clings to the filmy overlay of time.
You know him.
The name is there, the feeling within his chest borders on the pain of something within eager to escape. Thud thud thud fists on the walls of his rib cage, thud thud thud his cold, dead heart. Tip of his tongue, desperate to be spoken; fear keeps it locked behind teeth too white, too straight while fangs not quite bare. And he’s staring wide eyed and impossible at it all as like a picture book the memories not quite in focus–but the face clear as day over something softer and washed at the edges flicker before his mind’s eye.
Jean Claude du DeRosiers.
Dead dead dead—he’s dead, they–
Coward.
Run.
His loafers are planted to the ground, each feeling encased within cement.
Runrunrunrun–
Coward.
There’s no distant hope at a civil conversation. His mind struggles to churn out the memories further, for all he’s forgotten over the decades, this was something else. This was a trauma response, he knew that logically but logic was nothing before the overwhelming tide of emotion that washed over him. Maybe once he’d bene desperate, so very desperate to hide away from these horrible horrible truths but–
He’s managed a half-turn, a pathetic first step towards pivoting away from the sight before him and the thread had started to go lax as if satisfied at turmoil it had caused. But it’s not enough, he catches the confusion upon the bartender’s face–the way they cast a glance around the interior looking for what had caused such a monumental outburst of fear so unlike the predator that a vampire wise. He is the fox and the hounds are almost upon him.
Run run run away—coward coward coward—
Augustin dares not let himself speak, for fear of what may fall free–but it’s a strangled sort of curse that falls forth anyway “Jean-Claude,” a whisper choked forth from his lips that he can’t hope to bite back, a name not spoken in near two centuries and a face he’d hungered to forget (succeeded in so).
R u n.