Nathaniel couldn't remember the last time he'd slept in more than two hour shifts. No, that was a lie. Of course he knew. It was the night before Tiernan was born. The night before the tiny, now squalling, bundle of love and sharp claws had come into his life.

Sitting slumped at the kitchen table, eyes half closed, Nathaniel fed slivers of meat down the apparently, once more, ravenous beastie's craw. "Slow down,' he admonished, making him wait and listening to the brown dragon's pitiful cries. "You'll make yourself sick,' he scolded, giving in and giving him another piece.

Nathaniel sat by the hearth, watching the pot. He did this often but a moment ago, he would have sworn he saw it begin to shake. So now his books were set aside and the wereleopard was watching it intently.

Another twitch and he realized it was time. Moving carefully, he brushed aside the sand and exposed the smooth, molted top of the egg. It seemed to throb and his fingers brushed the shell. Beside him, gathered after a mad dash to the kitchen, was a bowl of raw met in finger length slivers. Now all he had to do was wait.

It seemed to take forever but was not so long before the shell cracked, splitting in several directions before the pieces began to fall. What emerged seemed so tiny and delicate.

But it's cry was not. Gathering the beastie to him, Nathaniel ignored the clawing and biting as he pressed the first piece of meat to the firelizard's maw. It ate. And ate and ate and ate. Longer than it had seemed to take the egg to hatch, he fed the tiny thing so much meat it's belly rounded out.

Staring up at Nathaniel, the lizard chirped, tiny wings fluttering as it reached up, it's tiny brown body still damp, and placed it's clawed paw on his nose.

Giggling, Nathaniel closed his eyes as he tried not to cry. He had a pet. For the first time in his life, he had a pet rather than being one.

( Sex, lies and videotapeCollapse )

Large paws easily covering the path, his gait slow and swaying as he led the way back home. Led being a comparative term as he stayed close to Sev, pausing now and then to just barely rub against him. Content, purring as they go.

Sev hadn't run. He didn't hate him in this form. And there seemed to be, after the initial reaction, no fear. It was enough. It was more than enough, it was good. Pausing at the door, hanging back a little to let his love open the door for him.

I was silly and naive to think that a home of our own would mean I wouldn't end up curled up in the bottom of a closet, hiding.

It's apparently my lot in life and I should learn to accept that.

There hadn't been that much to pack. Not as if he owned much, even now. The few things Lee had bought him, the small satchel he'd brought with him, the robe that was as much security blanket as the only link he had with Sir. And to Sev.

Though now he seemed to have destroyed that.

Pausing only long enough to write two letters. One a sentence and his name. The other his heart. One he left in the living room of the flat, the other curled into a roll next to Sir's cauldron.


Gathering up his bag, he slipped to the portal door and then, with a last look over this shoulder, slipped into the Nexus and then, beyond there, he'd find a way home.

He'd spent the last few days in the closet, that venture into the nexus not enough. He hadn't learned anything. He could be crazy. He could be having real dreams in alternate realities that were real in that world. He could be making it reality.

None of it told him if anything true was going on.

Finally crawling through the house, seeking out the one person he needed.

His Sir.

Sitting at the window, he gazed out but saw nothing on the other side of the glass. One hand toyed with his braid, playing the long, auburn dark mane through his fingers. Words rang in his ears. Words of Sir wanting the braid cut. For your own bloody safety.

Sir was gone. Off fighting the war and Nathaniel had made a promise. He'd be alive. He'd be there waiting. Healthy. Alive. Well.

But still lonely.

Everyone keeps going away. You would think I'd be used to it by now.


Safe trip, Sir and please, please hurry home to us. I will keep my promise though. I won't let you down.

Each piece of heavy, ivory cardstock lay perfectly placed across the table. Around each a silvery bow had been tied. Painstakingly sketched was each member of the household, the hand light, the shadowing deftly done and each captured the person in an unaware moment. Each captured the person as Nathaniel saw them. Even the animals.

The kittens ready to pounce the tiny horse. Riddle atop the mantle, leaning way over while his smaller counterpart wriggled her butt to distract the small steed.

Murgatroyd in the field the night Nathaniel had told Sir about Ray, the huge,w inged mount standing over Sir, protecting the leopard.

Madam, otherwise known as Hips to some, in the hallway of her building on her birthday, looking tousled and harried and completely happy.

Ma'am, Sir's Lady, kneeling, looking down upon someone. Her head cocked to one side, smiling as she offered her hand. In life, a moment later, Nathaniel had been clinging to her, the solace she gave making him smile even as he gazed on the picture.

Madeline, the sketch done to show the room behind her, through her. A small ghost with more responsibility than Nathaniel could ever handle. Their den mother. His best friend. Carrying a tea tray and barely making it without sinking into the floor, legs just started to disappear in the picture.

Lee laying on the bed, curled against a pillow that still bore the impression of another having slept there.

Then Sir. Instead of one, there was a series of sketchs. Sir with kittens using him as a jungle gym. Sir sitting on the floor, back to the kitchen cabinet and glass in hand. Sir smirking. Sir with head bowed, deep in thought.

And one that showed him and Ma'am. Just ready to kiss, hovering so close to one another and, somehow, the love in their eyes seeming to radiate from the picture.

The stack of pictures was down to perhaps a dozen. Each one had been meticulously kept, despite his moves. Despite the insanity of his life. Despite fires, and abuse and terror. He had carried them with him from his parents house to Gabriel's and Raina's, to Jean-Claude's lair in the Circus of the Damned and then to Gabriel's new home, to Wales.

Each stop had added new photos, each stolen from the person depicted. He didn't have a camera of his own so it had been his only choice. The ones of his family already smoldering, curled bits at the bottom of the trashcan. The ones that remained had been taken since he'd been infected.

Photos of Gabriel with the pard, each of them looking cowed and fearful even as they smiled. Raina holding a leash that split, the end of which held three leopards. Himself. Cherry. Zane. He'd been lucky and she liked his innocent look. He'd been spared hours as a cat, and then didn't have the marks in human form that many of the others had. Pictures from Guilty Pleasure's, Jason and himself on stage for the cheering crowd.

Each and every one was held over the lighter's flame, his eyes unwavering as he watched the celluloid curl and smoke until the fire scorched his fingers and he was forced to let what remained fall into the steel trashcan.

It was over. It was his past. None of is mattered anymore. That's what he kept telling himself. What he had to tell himself. Soon they would have their home back and they would all have their lives back. All of them but Nathaniel because, in the end, he had no life. There had never been a future that wasn't death and now, with a beautiful woman, a dark crush and a soon to be ghostly best friend, he didn't know how to go on.

What did one do when happiness had been dumped in one's lap and one didn't know how to be happy?

Reply to this post, and I'll tell you one and/or a lot of reason[s] why I like/love/adore you. Then put this in your own journal, and spread the love.

He sat on the balcony, the air mildly chilly from the late night but already the air was holding the heat of the desert day. Back to the all of the building, his legs drawn up to his chest. His auburn hair wrapped about his body, tiny tendrils twirling about his face with an errant breeze.

The city was bright as day in the distance. He knew that on the Strip at night one could almost get a sunburn from how bright the lights were. But it was that moment when things seemed quietest. A stack of newspaper squares sat beside him, a small rock atop them to keep them from flying away.

Every now and again he picked one up, folding into the shape of a small bird before pitching it off the balcony.

They never flew, merely plummeting to their death stories below.

It was a feeling he knew all too well.

((For those who haven't add it, I went and posted to the Unreal_Life apartment.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/unreal_life/23510.html))

((Set before they leave Hips' but after the break up, not sure how that is being played, but still in the apartment))

Not since his last talk with Sir had Nathaniel wanted to come out of the closet. The house was strange, the tension enough that it left him feeling sick and achey all the time and, in the end, it was the first time in a long while that the closet was truly his space and not merely a refuge.

Only in the wee hours, during that time between night and dawn, when all seemed peaceful, did he creep out. He knew Lee worried about him. Knew that he was likely not what she had wanted or expected in a love and boyfriend. But he hadn't expected things to go so amazingly insane. The one place he had actually called home, ever, in his entire life, was gone.

And he was scared.

Moving on silent feet through the house, making his way to the kitchen. But it was spotless. There was nothing for him to do here. No place for him. Sliding down against the counter, curled up in the corner of the cabinets. The one place he'd felt a place, in any home, and he still felt in the way. Curling his arms around his legs, forehead on his upturned knees.

Slipping into the basement, a small smile played over Nathaniel's lips. Tired. Sleepy. His eyes hooded with the lassitude of sleep, body still bearing the marks of his pillow and sheet. A sheet wrapped about his narrow hips, dragging the stones beneath him as he took up quill and parchment.

Using the devices of Sir's world, marveling at the play of nib over creamy paper. The dream still fresh in his mind as he put the words down, leaving the scroll beside Sir's most used, and seemingly beloved, cauldron, unfurled to allow the ink to dry. Even in Nathaniel's careful print, a painstaking script that oft belied his roots, a background of lower education, yet with that quill, on the thick paper that took the ink so well, his words came off like art.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind

The package was left on the bed they shared. Between her children and the pard, and Nathaniel's nerves over the event of the house, it seems as if they were constantly missing one another.

And the leopard was bound and determined to make it up to the woman that owned his heart. In the long box, nestled in black velvet was a dagger of such history and portence that it nearly sang with its ancestory. A classic piece of the Mughals, shimmering gold and rubies. Inside the lid was a linen notecard.

To My Wildcat-

I know that our lives hold us apart but our hearts are still joined as tightly as they've ever been. Your world is not always mine but may this always keep you safe and return you to me.

With love, adoration and admiration-

Nathaniel

"You are so beautiful. I would cherish you, if you were mine."



In favor of the decency I know that Sir would prefer I will just say that I had the most wonderful dream...

That turned into the most horrid nightmares.

I worry about Sir now. I fear that, perhaps, parts of the dream, while mostly wish fulfillment, were in truth me catching just a tiny glimpse of what it is Sir endures in this war that he fights. And what I saw scares me more than Gabriel. More thn Raina. More than facing all the horrors of the courts of the Council and St Louis to boot.

Poor Sir.

A single sheet of lined paper left on the dining room table, the handwriting painfully neat.

In my life I have done many things I've regretted. More have been done to me that I wish I had never endured. But I know that, in the end, I would not say no, even now. You've asked what I would say no to, what I wouldn't do for anything. I've spent all day and night and day again thinking. The list is short.

* I would not kill my Sir. He is my Alpha. Beyond that he has become more. What, I can not say, but enough that no power on earth or beyond could make me hurt him... more than I already have.

* I would not do anything intimate with Lee in Sir's bed.

* I would never hurt Lee. She is my love. I would die for her.

* Except at Sir's command or to defend him, I would do nothing to hurt ma'am.

I'm sorry, Sir. But this is all I can think of. If the pard asks, as long as they are my pard and, officially, Gabriel my alpha, he has a right to ask, to demand.

I'm sorry in advance if this is not good enough for you, Sir.

I don't know if there's anything left anymore.