Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 22:20:20 EST Subject: Fluff: Troubled Waters, pt 1 This fluff takes up one of the two threads started in the fluff entitled "Transitions". For the other thread, you will have to lean on Samantha and Steph, those recalictrant kitty-cats. (Oh, Golden, how about swooping on them two? *grin*). For those who are totally lost: Rain Addams, when she was still Nightshade, met and fell in love with Francis Calvert, one of the Brotherhood. This happened at the handfasting party this summer, along with a lot of other very strange things. *grin* (Hands up those who remember the bunny invasion...). Nightshade, however, discovered that she was actually Rain and did not get in touch with Francis becuase she was worried that he would hate her for the changes in her. At the Autumnal Equinox party (which did take place, didn't it? I'm confused...), Rain coversed with Baron Gideon Redoak about Francis, and accepted the Baron's invitation to join the party returning to Oakwoods. He suggested that she should speak to Francis, to explain things if possible. ___________ >In the meantime, Gideon had approached Rain. "Take your time about >contacting Francis," he told her, resting his hand very lightly on her >shoulder. "I want you to be certain that you are ready. Please, feel >that my house is yours until that time." >"Thank you," Rain said simply, amazed again by his generosity. Rain slipped up to be alone as soon as she could - feeling slightly out of place at the Oakwoods gathering. Part of her felt as though everyone in the room was viewing her with hostility for not having spoken to Francis in so long... That train of thought led to the fear she had of actually seeing him and trying to explain what had happened to her. She simply didn't have a clue where to start... Her fears and worried tormented her until dawn, when she was glad to sink down into the darkness of the room and stop thinking for a while. On awakening the next night, she knew she had to talk to him immediately. She couldn't bear the idea that someone might tell him she was there before she had the opportunity to speak to him. Heading downstairs, avoiding everyone she saw, Rain sought out the Baron, to find out how to get down to Francis' shack. Armed with very good directions - and a lot of nerves - she set out, sliding swiftly through the shadows, as was her wont. Finally she stood in front of his door, trembling violently with fear at what his reaction would be. She knocked so hesitantly that only preternatural vampire hearing could ever have heard it. A voice growled from inside, "Go away. I don't want to see anyone." Just hearing the timbers of his voice again made Rain's undead heart give a leap inside her, which she sternly quelled, reminding herself that she was there to end things once and for all... "Francis?" She breathed the word into the night air, letting the breeze carry it through the open window. There was a muffled curse from inside, and the voice spoke again, much nearer this time, warning whoever was playing nasty tricks on him to go away. "But I have to talk to you," she protested. "Please, Francis..." He opened the door and stood staring at her in utter disbelief, while her eyes involuntarily drank in the unconsciously longed-for sight of his angelic face. "Nightshade?" The question had a hostile, challenging tone to it, making her wonder if her welcome would be even colder than she'd expected... "Sort of," she replied lamely. Francis' blue eyes bored into her. Since she had left after the handfasting, he had given up hope of seeing her again, and he had turned sullen as a result. Never much of a socializer, he hadn't even been down to the bar for a beer with Ray or over with any of the Cliff Roaders for dinner. They hadn't given up on him, thinking he just needed time to heal. What he needed was to see Nightshade again. "What do you mean, sort of?" he growled. "It's hard to explain. Please, may I come in?" The teenaged vampire with the angel's face stood aside from the door. "Yeah," he grunted. The shack had three rooms, one of them surprisingly a bathroom with running water. The other two were a bedroom, windowless and with only a iron bedstead and a chair for furniture, and a living/sitting room with a small kitchenette. The furniture here was a slightly sagging sofa, two armchairs and another straight-backed chair like the one in the bedroom, and a television. Motorcycle parts took up most of the spare space. "Nice place," Rain said, unable to stop from making the comparison between this near-squalor and the splendor of Oakwoods that she had just left. "It suits me," Francis shrugged. "I don't get much company." He made an attempt to clear one of the armchairs of its load of motorcycle magazines. "Can I get you something? A beer?" "No thanks. I have to talk to you. Please listen." "I'm listening." He sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs. "You look different," he decided, peering at her closely. "That is part of what I have to talk to you about." ______ This is the combined effort of mtceng@onramp.net, aka Rain/Nightshade; and fraser@vax.library.utoronto.ca, aka Francis Calvert, Baron Gideon Redoak, and all the rest of the Brotherhood. *grin* Date: Sun, 23 Oct 1994 11:39:04 EST Subject: Fluff: Troubled Waters, part 2 "So start talking," Francis drawled. "That's what you finally showed up here for, right, Nightshade, to talk?" "Francis," Rain wailed, stricken at the coldness in those beautiful features, "please believe me, I never meant for things to turn out this way. It's just that I... that she... Oh, hell, I don't even know where to start!" "Try the beginning," Francis said flatly. "And if this is going to be a long story, you can sit down, you know." Gingery, obediently, Rain tested one of the armchairs. When it held, she looked up at the angelic face that was still so dear to her, despite what she kept telling herself. Taking a deep breath, she started. "I guess I should start all the way back when I was mortal. I was born in 1876 - and lived as though I was just an ordinary mortal until I was a very young-looking twenty- four. To this day, I still only look eighteen or nineteen - due to some immortal blood that I'll come to later. Anyway, in 1900 I got married. We were very happy together for the few precious months granted to us. Then I met Ambrose. Now, don't get the idea that Ambrose and I were ever lovers - we weren't. But we were friends. Really good friends. Until the night when Ambrose showed up at my house in the middle of the night. I was up late reading; my husband had already gone to bed. When Ambrose snuck up behind me and put his hand over my mouth, I was shocked and horrified. He told me that he was in love with me, that I had put him under some kind of a spell and he knew I felt the same way. I tried to tell him no, to tell him that I loved James, not him, but he wouldn't believe me. He dragged me up the stairs and into the room where my James lay fast asleep." She paused for a moment, closing her eyes against the old images, fighting for the composure to finally tell this story which no one had ever heard. Francis was leaning forward in his seat, engrossed in her words and in the raw anguish in her eyes. "Go on," he said. "Then what?" "Then," Rain whispered, "Ambrose took some rope that he had brought with him and tied me to a chair so that I couldn't move. He went over to the bed and bent over James - and that's when I saw his fangs. He was a vampire! I didn't believe what was happening - I thought for sure that this was only a nightmare which would be over soon. Oh, how wrong I was. Ambrose attacked James' throat and splattered his blood all over the bedroom. It was all over in a matter of seconds. Then Ambrose looked at me with the blood dripping from his fangs, and those red eyes, and he hissed at me, saying that now I was mine, and he and I would be together for all eternity. He came nearer me, while I struggled frantically to get away from him. He placed his mouth on my throat and started to drink, oh-so-gently. And to my eternal shame, with my husband's mutilated body lying in front of me, I had never been so aroused in my entire mortal life. The feel of Ambrose sucking my blood away was like nothing I'd ever felt before. And when he was finished, he untied me and placed my lips to the bloody wound he'd made in his own throat - and God help me, I drank eagerly." Her words faltered to a halt, and she swiped at the tears with her sleeve. Watching her, Francis could hardly keep himself from going to her, holding her as he'd been longing to all these months. But reminding himself of those long months gone by with no word from her, he hardened his heart against her, and just sat, waiting for her to continue. "Anyway, then I was a vampire like him. He was so happy - delighted just like a child. He wasn't the most intelligent vamp I've ever met by a long shot," forcing a tremulous smile, "When it was over, and I had realized and been sickened by what had happened, I cursed him for what he'd done, and made him turn to look into my James' wide, staring, dead eyes. I swore to Ambrose that I'd never be his companion after what he'd done to my life. He broke down completely at that. He begged and pleaded with me to forgive him, and when I wouldn't, he dragged me out of the house, and torched it. All the while that my mortal life burned, Ambrose explained to me what it meant to be a vampire, all the lore, and the ways to live without being detected. Then, just as the fire volunteers showed up, Ambrose went back into the house. What they later found in the room with James they all just assumed was me - and I left it, not wanting to have to explain the real truth." She paused, taking a deep breath. "Now this is the part that I should have told you at the handfasting. When I was turned, I was also pregnant. I have a son, Jamie, who is a vampire. He actually does grow - he's about seven now. Every twelfth year he goes down into the earth for the whole year, and arises a year older looking." She paused again, waiting to see what Francis' reaction to that little piece of news would be. Francis stared at Rain, that disconcerting, unblinking vampire stare that was a patented trademark of their kind. He had not expected Nightshade to come back to him, let alone with this story. He focussed on the one thing he could. "You have a son?" he asked. "Jamie?" Rain nodded, relieved that he hadn't exploded. "Yes." "Does he like motorcycles?" "Do you know a seven-year-old that doesn't?" Francis shook his head. "No." His expression softened, until it was almost comical. "A little boy..." he murmured, then shook his head again, more violently this time. "Never mind the kid!" He turned on Rain. "You aren't explaining anything! Where'd you go after the party? Why haven't I heard from you since then? Why do you look ... different, and yet the same? Nightshade ... I was so desperately in love with you that when I didn't hear from you, I wanted to die. The Brotherhood's the only thing that kept me together. Please, explain to me. I have to know why." _____ mtceng@onramp.net fraser@vax.library.utoronto.ca Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 21:46:32 EST Subject: Fluff: Troubled Waters, part 3 "Francis, be patient with me," Rain pleaded, crossing the room to kneel in front of him. "I've never told any part of this story to anyone before, and it's really important to me that you hear everything I have to tell you. You see, I had changed my name to Nightshade - it was far more suitable a vampire name than Patience Harris, which was my mortal name. And I lived as Nightshade for ninety-four years. Then I found out about the CotN, and pretty much crashed the handfasting, cause no one knew me at that point. And I met you," her eyes softened with tears as she stared up into his beloved face. "Will you just please get to the point?" He visibly steeled himself against the memories her words were evoking. "Why haven't I heard from you in so long? What were you trying to do to me?" "Nothing! I swear, I never meant to hurt you. I was going to go home and check on Jamie and then come right back to you... But then when I got home, there was this lovely woman waiting for me - who said she was my mother. Well, I laughed in her face. She looked nothing like the woman who raised me - and besides, Mother Harris has been dead for seventy-eight years now... But this lady (who didn't look any older than I do) said that she gave me to the Harrises and then lost track of me. She told me that my true name was Rain Addams - yes, part of the illustrious Addams family. Then she laid the big shock on me. My mother, Maris Addams, is a naiad. Which means, so am I. I'm a vampiric naiad," she gave a little laugh, all the while watching closely to see what his reaction would be. "So, you have a different name, and you have bloodlines that you never knew about," Francis said, his eyes cold, hard, and completely unreadable. "So what's the big deal? You still haven't told me why you left me!" His voice rose to a shouting pitch on the last few words. "This woman hands me a whole new identity, after over a hundred years of the old one, and you think I should have gotten over it just like that? Yes, I should have come back here, or called, or anything - but when you're trying to adjust to being something so totally different than everything you've always been, you aren't always as clear-headed as you'd like to be!" She stood up, almost shouting at him in her outrage. "Is that the story, then?" Francis asked the question very quietly, not giving anything away. "Yeah. That's why I look different, that's basically why I am different. And yet I'm still the same person underneath. I just didn't know how much so until I looked at you." Francis didn't look at her. He couldn't, because he knew that if he did, he'd break down. "I was a typical teenaged punk in the 60's," he said to a greasy, unidentifiable motorcycle part. "I'd run away from home, severed all my old ties, and was living the free life. Playing a little music, doing a little grass and LSD, riding my bike, just screwing around as so many of us did in the 60's." He heard rather than saw Rain nod. "Then I met _her_." The scorn in his voice was unmistakable. "Your turnmother?" Rain asked. "She was no mother to me! She was so beautiful, and she offered me crashspace. She had this great old house in New Hampshire, she said, where no-one would bother us. She believed in free love. How was I supposed to know there was a price? Man, I thought I loved her. And she betrayed me. She made ... this." He finally looked up and snarled at Rain, the fangs and glowing eyes startlingly at odds with his Pre-Raphealite features. No wonder that vampire had wanted him, but how could she have abandoned him? "Did she tell you what she was?" Rain asked. "Not until after she'd had a bit too much of my blood. I think it made her high, actually." His blue eyes gloated with secret satisfaction. "I'd just done some sort of psychedelic, and she was tripping on my blood, and didn't know when to pull out. So she had to turn me or watch me die. She should'be let me die. No-one would have asked after me, I would have been just one more drug overdose or 60's dropout. But she felt _guilty_," and the scorn was back, "So she gave me her blood. And told me what she was. Then she split, and I never saw her again. She betrayed me." "You've done well one your own," Rain said inanely. He laughed harshly. "Have I? Look around you, Nightshade. Rain. Whatever. What do you see? One screwed-up little punk vampire living in a shack, surrounded by motorcycle bits and pieces. Twice-betrayed by women I thought I loved." He kicked at the pile of magazines at his feet. "My best friend is an ex-black sorcerer who's even more screwed-up than I am, and the only place I found refuge is with a bunch of occult beings who'd give anyone nightmares if they weren't all so damned nice." He looked at her fully for the first time since she'd finished her story. "What made you come here, anyway?" "I thought at first," Rain said slowly, "that I needed to come here to apologize - because I thought what I felt was guilt. But I was wrong. I needed to come here because I needed to see you again. Because, however much I have changed, one thing hasn't. I still love you, Francis. As much as I always have. I thought everything in me that had been Nightshade was gone, but I was so wrong. All it took was one look at your face." She walked toward the window, staring out into the night so he couldn't see the tears running down her cheeks. "You say that, now." He directed the words toward yet another greasy piece of metal, not wanting to see her; not wanting to believe her. "Then sooner or later you'll get tired of me and decide it's time to pull another disappearing act. I don't think I really want to wait around till that happens." Rain whirled around to face him, her eyes shooting blue sparks at him. "Do you know that you are the first man that I have said 'I love you' to in ninety-four years? That you are the first person I've met in all that time that has made me forget what happened to the last two men who made the mistake of loving me? I don't say those words lightly. And when I do say them, I mean it." Pushing herself away from the window, she knelt in front of him and took his hands in hers. "You may be a screwed-up punk vampire, but you're a screwed-up punk vampire that I happen to be in love with," she said in an attempt at humor. When he didn't respond, she took his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. "Francis, please, don't shut me out." ------ Joint fluff being brought to you by: Rain Addams : mtceng@onramp.net Francis X. Calvert: fraser@vax.library.utoronto.c Deadies: the shredded corpse cereal that starts your night off right! Made by Nabiscorpse Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 18:37:24 EST Subject: Fluff: troubled Waters, pt 4 >"Francis, please, don't shut me out." The younger vampire, who really wasn't as tough or as distant as he was trying to pretend, melted at those words. "Night..." he began, then coughed into his hand. "Rain. I don't want to shut you out. I just was really mad when you left, and then I didn't hear from you, and then you show up unannounced on my doorstep with this wild story about being someone else... I just didn't know what to think." "Think that I love you," Rain said. "It happens to be true." "Oh, hell," said Francis, hopelessly. He took her in his arms and held her, and she didn't protest that he was getting motorcycle grease all over her clothes. That wasn't what was important. "I love you, too," Francis said into Rain's ear after he'd pried his lips loose from hers. "What the hell are we going to do about it?" "Come to Houston, and meet my son," Rain said. "I moved." "It would be a start." Francis laughed shakily. "But I can't live in Houston, Rain. Look at me, I'm not the Houston type." "I am not asking you to come and live with me, Francis." She added, under her breath, "Not yet." She smiled. "Just come and meet my son, see where I live, get to know me as I know you." "Okay," Francis agreed. "Hey, I didn't hear a car pull up when you arrived. How'd you get to Fletcherville, anyway?" "Er, um, Samantha blue-doored me here after the party. The Baron invited me to stay in Oakwoods when I told him that I wanted to see you again. He's really very nice." "Yeah," Francis growled. "A really nice 371-year-old vampire." "Don't you make fun of vampires, fledgling!" Rain teased him. "I see I'm going to have to teach you respect for your elders." He snorted. "Yeah?" He grabbed her in a bear hug. "When you get loose, maybe..." "And who says I ever want to get loose?" Rain purred, sliding her arms around his neck. "Besides, we owe a lot to the Baron. If it weren't for him, I'd never have had the courage to come here." "We'll just have to thank him," Francis said. Bending his head towards her neck, he whispered, "But I think it can wait until later. I've been dreaming of holding you like this for entirely too long." Rain threw her head back as his teeth gently sank into her throat, and reveled in the feel of being back in his arms at long last. Hungry for the taste of his blood, she bit his neck in her turn, and nothing more was said for quite a while. _______ Brought to you by: Rain Addams mtceng@onramp.net Francis Calvert fraser@vax.library.utoronto.ca and by: Undeaderal Express when it absolutely, positively, has to be there AT night!