Disclaimers:  All characters herein depicted are the property of their
          owners/creators.  Any misrepresentation of these characters is the sole
          liability of the author.  No profit is being made by the use of these
          characters.  So there.
          Lyrics from "One Night in Bangkok" from the musical "Chess."  Don't know
          who wrote it, published it or performed it.
          Permission given to archive to JADFE and the fanfic website only.  All
          others, please ask.
          Comments, caviar and complaints to mollyschneider@prodigy.net.
          This is a long one, and there's a bit of a wait for the juicy parts--and
          oh, yeah, I know I used too many adjectives.  Sorry.

          One Night in Byzantium
          Copyright 1998 by Molly Schneider

          "One Night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
          Not much between despair and ecstasy."
 

          "Where is he?"  Janette flinched at the wrath in her master's voice, and
          shrunk back in her chair as he took a pace around the room.  It was,
          perhaps surprisingly, a cozy room, with its carpets and hangings, its
          painted walls and low furniture, all bathed in a golden glow by the oil
          lamps.  LaCroix's mood sliced through the warm ambiance like a dagger of
          ice.  "He is young yet," she said, "and easily distracted.  "I'm sure he
          will be here soon."

          **********

          Nicholas was drunk, or so it seemed to him.  Not deeply drunk, but the
          blood of the women he'd killed earlier surged through his veins, making
          each nerve ending vibrate deliciously and expanding his vampiric senses
          even more.  The only sensation he knew to compare it with was the sweet
          headiness of wine.

          The sky above the crowded streets of Constantinople seemed deep and
          glowing, every pinprick star a precious jewel.  A life, he thought,
          wondering.  If each star is a life, do they look down on us and
          see--stars?  He took a deep breath to taste the rich air--incense and
          cookfires, perfumed bodies and unwashed ones, spice and sweat and the
          dust of centuries.  He laughed with the sheer joy of it, and leaned
          against the nearest wall.  It must have been a government building or a
          church:  the façade was covered with an intricate mosaic, thousands of
          tiny tesserae joined with artistry.  He traced the stone tiles, his face
          only inches away.  These faces, how they seemed to breathe with ruddy
          life!  And--wings.  He looked closer.  How could these simple stones
          create such a vivid picture of great golden wings?

          A hand tucked itself under his arm.  "Have a little too much tonight?" a
          sympathetic male voice asked.  He shook the hand off, impatiently,
          without looking at the man.  The hand came back.  "Shall I see you to
          your door?"

          Something snapped in him, then, some blackness he'd been barely aware of
          leaped up his throat and out through his eyes, his fangs.  In an instant
          he'd dragged the man deep into the shadows and drained him.  The extra
          influx of blood on top of what he'd already drank made him giddy.  He
          barely remembered to slit the man's throat with his dagger and take his
          purse to make it look like a robbery before he hurried away.  He kept to
          the narrow alleys and dark passages on the way home; his brief life as a
          vampire had not yet subdued the panicky feeling he felt after a kill, as
          though he expected any minute to hear "Stop!  Murderer!" following after
          him.
 

          "He tries my patience, Janette,"  LaCroix told his daughter, who was
          relieved that he was at least sitting down now, a glass close to hand.
          "Have I not given him whatever he needs, whatever he wishes?  Have I not
          taught him well?  And where is my recompense?"

          "I think," she said carefully, "he does not know what you want."

          LaCroix glared at her.

          "He is from a different world than you, cher maitre.  He was raised to
          believe it was a sin for there to be desire between two men."

          An eyebrow quirked higher.  "And why should this matter to him now?  He
          is beyond all the superstitions of mortals."

          She shrugged.  "Perhaps not yet.  And then, too, perhaps he simply
          cannot see your desire."

          "And perhaps he's just obstinate.   If he will not give, Janette. . .I
          can always take."

          She came to him and knelt by his side.  "Do not hurt him, please.  You
          know that you do not need to do that, to get what you want."  He raised
          a hand to caress her dark locks.  Such creatures of beauty and grace,
          these children of his.  He had not always been so fortunate . . .
          "Retire if you wish, my dear, and do not fear for your brother.  If he
          does not come soon, I shall go and bring him home.  And I will not hurt
          him, tonight."

          LaCroix watched her walk away in a rustle of crimson that matched almost
          exactly the blood in his glass.  He tilted the bowl of the glass over
          the flame of a nearby lamp to warm it.  No, he would not hurt
          Nicholas--not yet.  Rape had its pleasures, but not when you had to live
          with the victim afterwards.  Besides, that was not what he wanted.
          Nicholas had a sensuous nature, that had been clear from the start.  He
          wanted to enjoy that sensuality to its fullest.

          A frantic banging on the entry door interrupted his musings.  "It's me,
          Nicholas!  Let me in!"  His newest child nearly fell into the room when
          LaCroix opened the door.  He groped for a chair and stumbled into it.

          "Where have you been?  And whatever is the matter with you?"

          "I drank too much."  Nicholas leaned his head back against the wall,
          closed his eyes and -- now that he was safely home -- laughed softly.

          "How many?"

          "Two at first.  Whores.  Beautiful.  But then I was coming home and a
          man . . ."  He frowned and stopped.  There was something there he didn't
          want to talk about, not with LaCroix, in any event.  But his master
          prompted him:  "A man?"

          Nicholas slid his eyes away from the commanding figure towering over
          him.  "He thought I was drunk.  He said he'd see me home.  He wouldn't
          leave me alone."

          Ah, now, this is interesting, thought the Roman. He laid his cool palm
          deliberately against Nicholas' flushed cheek and tilted his face
          upward.  "And did you enjoy him, mon protégé?"

          Nicholas couldn't find words. He remembered the lust he'd drunk in the
          man's veins, mingled with another emotion he did not know the word for:
          the man had been in awe of Nicholas' beauty, had wanted to touch it,
          worship it . . . "Yes," he whispered.

          Good, LaCroix thought.  Very good.  He removed his hand and helped
          Nicholas to his feet.  "A bath, first, then bed."

          "A bath?" Nicholas protested.  "But I took a bath just a few days ago."

          "And since then you've been wandering the streets, drinking in the
          delights of the city, and now you need another one.  Besides, Nicholas,
          bathing is a pleasurable thing."

          "Well, yes,"  he admitted.
 

          One of their servant's last duties before being sent home for the
          evening was to stoke the boiler for the hypocaust.  Here in this ancient
          city one could still find houses with such things, and LaCroix
          appreciated the convenience of having his bathwater hot, without waiting
          for it to boil.  He filled the deep stone tub for his child, who dropped
          his clothes absently and stood stroking the wall, shivering at the
          sensation of the plaster under his fingertips, until LaCroix said, "In
          with you now."

          Nicholas slipped into the water and sighed with contentment.  Oils of
          frankincense and cedar floated shimmering on the surface; he breathed
          deeply of the aromatic steam.  Now that his panic had faded he barely
          remembered the man he'd killed, or why.  His master picked up the sponge
          floating on the water and started to bathe him.  Nicholas chuckled a
          little.  "I can bathe myself, LaCroix; I'm not a child."

          "You're my child," the other responded with a smile, and went on.
          Nicholas lay back, languid, and watched the sponge moving over his
          flesh, and the hand that held it.  Strange, he thought.  Such strong
          hands and yet so gentle.  He raised his eyes to look at LaCroix's face.
          Yes, the one who had made him was strong, he had felt it when first they
          met.  That strength had drawn him as a needle to a lodestone.  So often
          in his life what had seemed eternal, unchanging, had fallen away from
          him.  His father, Gwynneth, God's holy war. . .ideas, only ideas.  But
          LaCroix was real.  LaCroix wasn't going anywhere.

          The face he looked at was serene, the piercing eyes half-lowered to his
          task.  Nicholas felt as if he had been in the tub forever.  The gentle
          swaying of the warm water lulled him; the rhythmic motion of the sponge
          along his limbs--"Lean forward. I'll do your back."  He obeyed, bracing
          his hands on the tub's rim and dropping his head.  The sponge moved in
          long strokes up his back.  He gasped, and clutched the rim tighter.  The
          sensation was almost unbearable--and then the sponge moved over his
          shoulders, and up the back of his neck.  He felt as though he were
          drowning.  "LaCroix," he managed.  "I think that's enough."

          "Yes, I think so," his master said calmly.  "You do smell better.  Can
          you get out by yourself?"

          "Yes."  He clambered over the side and went to stand over the grate in
          the floor where LaCroix poured a jug of clear rinse water over him.
          "Dry yourself off.  I'll go get you a clean chemise."

          He toweled off. The man he'd killed tonight. . . LaCroix . . . the way
          LaCroix touched him, so casually. . . Somewhere a voice locked deep in
          his mind was hammering to get out, but he couldn't trace it.  Maybe he
          didn't want to.

          Nicholas settled on his bed with a deeply contented sigh.  At least one
          mortal pleasure had not been altered for him by his vampire nature: the
          sheer bliss of relaxing totally into clean crisp sheets.

          "Better?"  He opened his eyes to find LaCroix leaning over him.  The
          incongruity of his imperious master acting like the nursemaid of his
          babyhood made him chuckle.

          "Yes, Papa," he said in an attempt at babytalk.  "All better now."

          LaCroix smiled back at him and, sitting on the edge of the bed, smoothed
          a stray golden lock back from Nicholas' forehead.  The hint of a frown
          creased his son's forehead.  "LaCroix," he asked seriously, "are you
          angry at me?  For killing so many?"

          "Did you hide your kills properly, as I taught you to do?"

          "Yes.  I was careful."

          "Then, no, I'm not angry at you.  But you must learn to keep your wits
          about you at all times, Nicholas.  We are powerful, our kind, but we are
          not invincible."

          His hand was still stroking Nicholas' hair.  It felt good.  Soothing,
          like a cool rain.  Nicholas nestled his head against it.  It stilled for
          the briefest moment, then brushed against his cheek and slid under his
          hair to cup the back of his neck.  He sighed as the strong agile fingers
          found the last remaining knots of tension in his neck.  "Better?"
          murmured LaCroix.

          He was suddenly aware of the weave of the linen under his back, the tiny
          heartbeat of a moth clinging to the windowframe, the hushed voice of a
          woman singing somewhere deep in the maze of passages and courtyards.
          Acutely, intensely aware of the face only inches from his own--the full,
          almost sulky, lips; the moonsmooth lids half-veiling the blue eyes.

          " . . . Yes . . ." he managed, aware that he was agreeing to something
          more, but not sure what it was.

          Then he was being kissed.  So simple, at first: a firm press of the lips
          like he would have received from any male friend in that other life, so
          long ago.  But the pressure eased and the lips lingered, caressing,
          sucking softly. His own lips parted in response, without any conscious
          will on his part, and the tip of a cool tongue snaked between them,
          tracing the sensitive inner rim of his lower lip.  He moaned softly, and
          pulled away.  "Shh, mon fils."  LaCroix stroked his face.

          "I--I don't--what are you doing?"  He couldn't think straight, not with
          those hands moving on him, that powerful body so close to him.  LaCroix
          gave him no answer, but for the return of his mouth on Nicholas'.  This
          time that tongue worked its way deeper, like the questing tendrils of a
          grapevine.  He found his own twining with it, his mouth opening hungrily
          under LaCroix's, his arms reaching up to wrap around the column of his
          master's neck.  He drank deeply, not of LaCroix's blood, but of a
          stronger, more elusive essence.  It was only the sound of cloth ripping
          underneath his nails that brought him back to his senses.

          He broke free from the embrace, pressing himself against the headboard,
          staring wide-eyed at his companion.  LaCroix's chemise hung from his
          shoulders, but his eyes were calm.  "What is the trouble, then?" he
          asked.

          "I'm a man," Nicholas declared flatly.  LaCroix permitted himself the
          ghost of a smile.  "I had noticed."  He waited.  He was good at waiting.

          "It's--it's not natural."

          "As could be said of our very existence.  This existence that has given
          you such pleasure, such sensations, this same night."  One hand began an
          oh-so-casual journey along Nicholas' shoulder, across his collarbone . .
          . "To seize our pleasure from the very jaws of death and in doing so to
          triumph--is that not the essence of our nature, Nicholas?  To stand
          before that mocking negation and declare ourselves *alive*--to refuse to
          accept the bargain death would force upon us and to take, not what we
          can get, but what we *will*?"

          He spoke with a mesmerizing passion and Nicholas stared into his eyes,
          seeing not the pale blue orbs, but endless corridors of light and
          shadow.  Possibilities, horizons, stretching out forever: his for the
          taking.  "Yes," he breathed.

          LaCroix, in a reverie of his own, had almost forgotten why he was here.
          Now, brought to himself, he looked at the shining countenance below
          him.  He had intended to seduce, not to ask, but ask he did:  "May I
          show you pleasure this morning, my beloved son?"

          "I'm afraid."

          "Of me?"

          Nicholas hesitated, shook his head.  No.  He believed LaCroix capable of
          hurting him out of anger, but never out of a joy in cruelty.  No.
          LaCroix would care for him.  He was afraid of something, but its nature
          eluded him.  He caught LaCroix's wandering hand in his own and pressed a
          kiss on his palm.  "Show me, cher maitre."

          With one lithe gesture the chemise was disposed of, over the side of the
          bed, and LaCroix took his protégé in his arms.  Eros guided him with the
          surety of a god.  His hands moved up and down the long muscles of his
          golden one's back as he pressed him close, their chests and bellies
          meeting with a shiver of joy.  His lips moved over the other's
          face--eyes, cheeks, mouth--until Nicholas tossed his head back and
          groaned.  Then his mouth made contact with that throat, sucking and
          licking in a fervor of desire.

          Nicholas' legs were twined around his, his arms holding LaCroix tight.
          His groans deepened as LaCroix worked his throat.  "Shh," LaCroix
          breathed against that sensitive flesh.  "Easy, now."

          He moved down his favorite's chest, teasing the nipples into hard buds
          of desire even as his hands soothed the tense body underneath him.
          "Easy.  We have all the time in the world."

          Lost.  Nicholas was lost in a world of sensation, as drunk as he had
          been earlier.  He marveled at the silky ripple of the muscles in the
          marble-hard flesh under his hands.  His nipples warmed under the wet
          tongue, then contracted with pain and pleasure as needle-sharp fangs
          pricked at them.  The hands stroking his flanks taught his muscles the
          languorous rhythm of tense-and-release, hinting at rhythms yet to come.

          LaCroix paused to look down at his son.  The sensuality he'd known was
          there was blossoming like some ripe and fragrant flower of the night.
          He ran a finger over the rosepetal mouth and was pleased when a gleaming
          fang pierced it.  He had known before he'd begun that tonight was for
          Nicholas; that what rewards he would reap for himself would come from
          satisfying the desires he awakened in his protégé.  No matter: such
          rewards were none the less satisfying, for all that.

          Nicholas had only just become aware that he was hard, achingly hard, in
          fact.  Now a teasing caress moved the length of his shaft, bringing his
          erection into painful focus.  "LaCroix--" he growled.  His foreskin was
          rolled back, cool fingers stroking the tender surface of his exposed
          glans.  His hips jerked and his heels dug into the mattress.  A hand
          pumped his cock, just long enough to tease, before gathering his scrotum
          in a firm grip.

          LaCroix laughed softly, holding the struggling vampire down against the
          sheets.  He waited until the other was still, only the gleam of an amber
          eye betraying impatience, before continuing his exploration. He leaned
          over Nicholas' erection.  Pausing briefly to brush his mouth over the
          straining cock, he sought out the tender creases where Nicholas' thighs
          joined his pelvis, where his scrotum hung against his perineum.  He took
          a deep, open-mouthed breath, savoring the rich musk of his son's
          arousal.

          "LaCroix. . ." desperate hands clutched at his head. "Please."  The old
          one uncoiled like an albino tomcat, stretching along his chosen one's
          side to purr into his ear.  "But what is this, Nicholas?  We've just
          started."

          The younger man turned his head on the pillow to face his master.  "I
          don't know what I'm supposed to do," he confessed.

          "You're supposed to enjoy it, Nicholas.  Like the bath.  Like the bed.
          Just--enjoy."  Eyes paling to the colour of marsh-gas held Nicholas'.  A
          demon, he thought, awed: a demon of burning snow.  What have I become
          that this demon inspires in me not horror, but a fierce joy?  Ah, I am
          truly damned, for he is glorious, glorious, and I cannot think
          otherwise.

          The demon bent over him again and this time wrapped its mouth around
          Nicholas' aching cock.  So cool was it's spit, and yet so warm.  He
          groaned, and began to rock his hips, guided by the demon's hands.  His
          vision blurred, melding with his other senses.  A ripple of drunken
          laughter outside pattered along his skin like raindrops; spices bloomed
          under his fingers as he ran them through short white hair as sharp as
          splinters, as soft as ash.  The rhythm of his demon's mouth and of his
          own thrusts, the glow of the oil lamps wound themselves into a tighter
          knot.

          The moment stopped, and stretched.  This was it, this was everything.
          That essence he'd drunk from LaCroix's mouth, the breath of dawn, the
          clean sheets--call it pleasure or sensation or triumph.  It was Life.
          And he was part of it--he was alive!  He felt the vibration along the
          back of his throat before he realized that it was the muezzin's voice
          lifted across the sky, and not his own, and so he laughed out loud,
          fierce and exulting as he flooded LaCroix's mouth.

          "Drink," whispered his demon, his saint, and he opened his mouth to the
          richness of eternity.
 

          The constant noise of the city lulled slightly just after dawn for the
          space of an hour, maybe--a lull which cradled small children in their
          last sweet dreams of the night, brushed a gentle hand over the furrowed
          brow of scholars and mages, revived the artisan and laborer for the
          coming day.  A lull which wrapped lovers in the tender arms of the
          afterglow of their passion.

          There was an old, thickwalled house deep in this city.  Its latticed
          windows were tightly shuttered and would remain so through the day.
          Inside a small room off the scented courtyard two figures of ivory and
          alabaster lay entwined on the low bed.

          Nicholas, his eyes still closed, pressed the tip of his tongue lightly
          against his lover's smooth chest.  LaCroix stirred.  His erection had
          subsided only slightly while he waited for his protégé to recover.  A
          tender-rough hand moved across the arch of his ribs, traced a lazy
          circle around his navel.  "Nicholas."  He intended to point out that he
          had not yet achieved *his* release and would his dear child leave off
          teasing him, when the hand closed around his cock and began a strong,
          sure stroking.  A groan escaped him, and Nicholas' mouth curved in a
          wicked grin.  "I'm impressed, LaCroix," he drawled.

          "I'm . . . gratified," the other said weakly, then quick as a striking
          snake he seized his lover and rolled.  Nicholas let out a startled
          "ooph!" as he was flung on his back, his master leaning over him.  "Oh,
          don't stop, Nicholas," breathed LaCroix, "I shouldn't like it at all if
          you stopped."  Nicholas resumed his ministrations, LaCroix pumping his
          cock through the tight fist.  For long moments they said nothing,
          tension building in the breath hissing between their teeth.

          He licked the sensual face below him.  Through their bond he felt
          Nicholas shiver inside, fearing his raw male power, yet drawn to him.
          He subtly emphasized that power, staring unyieldingly into his son's
          eyes, leaning over him.  He savored the anticipation of the coming
          penetration, his cock taking possession of that virgin territory.  He
          allowed some of that anticipation to escape down the link to the man
          beneath him.

          Nicholas caught his breath; his hand stilled on the demanding cock.
          "Don't stop, mon fils, mon desir."  That voice was like velvet, like
          darkness in his ear.  God, what was he to do!  He knew what LaCroix
          wanted, and honour demanded that he not back out now.  Yet he felt
          acutely the ruthless strength of the being hovering over him, the
          unyielding power, the lust, the possessiveness.  Part of him wanted--no,
          needed--to be wanted that strongly.  It was easy with women: from
          childhood he was used to them smiling on him.  Few men yet had ever seen
          him as other than a rival, certainly no one had wanted him as LaCroix
          wanted him, had wanted him from the beginning.  There was fear in him,
          though: fear of being carried away to where there was no turning back.

          LaCroix shifted position, sitting back on his heels while still pumping
          into Nicholas' hand.  "That's it.  Yes."  He parted Nicholas' thighs,
          lifting them--"No, don't stop.  You'll know when to stop."  He noted
          without comment his son's growing erection, and leaned forward again,
          lifting the other's legs around his waist.  His lips brushed the other's
          ear.  "Do you wish to please me, Nicholas?"  A pause, then "yes,"
          half-sobbed.  "Yes, I know you do."

          He took Nicholas' hand from his cock, guided it to his shoulder,
          stroking his son's waist.  Slipping his hands under to cup those sweetly
          rounded buttocks he lifted Nicholas' ass and leaned the head of his cock
          against that secret opening.

          "No!" Nicholas cried out, and thrashed under him, trying to escape.
          LaCroix's grip tightened.  "Shh.  Easy.  Calm yourself."  The struggle
          subsided.  "Do you now what we're going to do now, Nicholas?"

          "You--you--you're going to--take me--"

          "Yes.  You're going to pleasure me, Nicholas, and I you."

          "I can't!  I can't!"

          "Yes, you can.  Put aside your fear.  Trust me."

          There was no response from the panting, trembling figure on the bed.

          "Open your eyes, Nicholas.  Look at me."  Slowly, bravely, those
          celestial eyes turned on him.  Childlike eyes, wanting so to trust.
          LaCroix put his fingers to his mouth, licking them, and wet his cock.
          Nicholas whimpered a little.  LaCroix leaned his forehead against his
          son's, breathed "Open yourself to me, Nicholas.  Let me in."  Digging
          his fingertips into the pressure points at the top of Nicholas'
          buttocks, he eased the head of his cock just inside him.

          It hurt, but not as much as he'd expected.  He felt the tight ring of
          muscle in his ass throb around the invading cock, felt LaCroix waiting
          for him.  "Yes, Nicholas.  Let me in."  Another inch or two slipped in;
          he experimented, tightening and releasing his inner muscles around
          LaCroix.  "That's it.  Yes.  Take your time."

          A bone-deep, soul-deep sense of relief rushed through him.  He wrapped
          his legs tighter around LaCroix, drawing him in.  His master pushed the
          entire length of his cock inside him and he moaned again, this time from
          pleasure.  "Yes," he sighed.

          LaCroix fucked him.  Deep, thoroughly, taking possession of this lost
          golden child, claiming him.  He led them surely up the steep slopes of
          passion, his heart swelling as he watched Nicholas' eyes flare golden,
          his lips curl back in the vampire rictus, exposing his fangs.  "That's
          it, mon desir, mon plaisir, mon amant.  Yessss. . ."  He quickened the
          pace, working that tight hot passage with deep, long strokes, feeling
          his own Change come over him.

          Vampire eyes fixed on vampire eyes.  Snarls and growls rose together in
          the closeness of the small chamber, viciously powerful bodies slammed
          together in a communion of the animal and the angelic.  The barriers
          between soul and body crumbled under the heat of a desire so strong it
          could defy time and death.

          "Mine!" LaCroix hissed.  "You are mine, forever!"

          "Yes!" Nicholas screamed.  "Take me, for the love of heaven and hell,
          take me!"

          Then the fangs sank into his throat and he felt the sudden throb of his
          blood into LaCroix's mouth.  He turned his head, guided by a strong
          hand, and his master's blood flooded his own mouth, all the richness of
          a long and complex life filling him.  He came against LaCroix's belly,
          felt LaCroix coming inside him, felt them joined by their come and their
          spit and their blood.

          They were one, for a moment in time.  And, wrapping together in a
          tighter knot even as they fell away from each other, thought that moment
          to be eternity.

          ####