dante_eternal | Recent Entries

"It's been quiet tonight."

Dante smiled at his boyfriend and snuggled closer to him. "It has."

Since being turned, Dante didn't really feel things like the cold, but the tradition of enjoying a crackling fire on Christmas Eve with the man he loved was something he wasn't quite ready to let go.

"What time is it?"

Dante checked the clock on the mantel. "A little past six."

"Hmm."

"What is it?"

"We usually get carolers by now."

Dante cleared his throat and sat up a little. "About that..."

"Dante, what did you do?"

His sweet, and still very human, partner was looking at him with the same stern expression he'd seen from all of his teachers growing up whenever he'd misbehaved. In those days, he'd always confessed to whatever mischief he had committed when subjected to that gaze. It also, not surprisingly, had the same affect today with his boyfriend being the one to wrest the admission out of him.

"I may or may not have warned them that if they bothered us tonight, I would eat them."

"They're children!"

Dante nodded. "I know. That's probably why they didn't know that vampires don't actually eat people."

His boyfriend narrowed his eyes at him. "You need to fix this."

"Why? You always complain that they can't sing, they're intrusive, and they always expect some sort of treat after they've butchered a few holiday classics."

"Yes, that's all true, but you can't threaten them."

"It worked, didn't it?"

There's a long pause, then a sigh.

"All right, fine. But, next year, can you do the same thing for Halloween?"

Would you rather walk or ride?

I would most definitely rather ride my Aprilia motorcycle wherever I have to go. There's nothing like getting onto an empty stretch of road on a moonlit night and just letting her show me what she's got. It's awesome. It's even better if I've got Marius sitting behind me with his arms wrapped around me. I don't get to take her out to deserted roads too often these days and mostly take her around the city when I get the chance, but it's sweet when I do.

How many hours can you spend doing just one thing? That is the question. What are you doing, and for how long? Other important things to consider: where are you doing this thing? Is it illegal? Are you looking for an audience or do people just ...happen to be staring at you?

It had been ages since Dante had tended bar at the club, but when their regular bartender wasn't able to come in, he'd been happy to step in and help out. After a little while, he had gotten back into the swing of things and it was as if he'd never stopped mixing drinks and playing to the crowd that gathered to watch his showboating. He could literally do this all night.

"I reject your reality and substitute my own."

I'm pretty good at living in denial. Whether it's moving out to Los Angeles from Kansas in the late 1920's and completely ignoring the fact that it wasn't the wisest course of action, or discovering that the man I loved was what I always thought to be a mythical creature and acting as if it was completely normal. I could always justify/defend/accept anything that I did with my life no matter how it may have looked to others. I think a lot of us do this. Maybe it's not really denial so much as it's human nature to do one's best to accept the life they have. Or not. I have no clue, really. I never went to school past the eighth grade and think philosophy is best left to the experts like my Marius.

But there's a difference between denial and completely obliterating who you are in order to survive.

When the man I'd loved for almost 60 years was murdered by a hunter, I refused to accept it. I couldn't. Accepting it would mean that my entire life had been destroyed. I didn't want to face an eternity without him, but the part of me that had a need to survive wouldn't let me deliberately end it all. I had no choice but to become someone new, to completely destroy the man I had been with him and turn myself into a person who didn't give a shit about anyone. I did superficial things like changing my name and the color of my hair, but I forced myself to change inside, too. I had to have a new attitude and change the way I dealt with people. I was cold, distant, even cruel sometimes. Soon, the man I used to be was nothing but a memory, replaced by my new self. It was all about self-preservation. The new me didn't have to mourn or live with memories that were too painful to bear. I would never make the same mistake of loving someone whether as a friend or something more. Letting people in would be the thing that would destroy me. Or so I thought. After about 20 years I understood that it was all right to love someone, but by then it was too late for me to completely return to being my old self. It's all right. I've come to love the reality I've made for myself.

( Behind the cut )

Dante didn't like people. That's why when he and Marius rented a beach house for the weekend and were forced to listen to the people next door blaring their music at all hours, his first instinct was to go next door and kill them. After Marius explained why that wouldn't be the wisest course of action, Dante had thought about compelling them to stay quiet. That wasn't a good idea, either, since he wasn't too keen on actually making contact. Luckily, as if answering a prayer, a storm rolled in and knocked out the power, instantly making them perfect neighbors.

Dante stared at the sketch of him and Paulie. It had been done months after he'd been shot and Paulie had been forced to turn him. Looking at the smiling faces, Dante's thoughts easily returned to those days. Everything was different and scary when seen through new eyes, but it was also brilliant. It was like literally being born again and having to learn all there was to know about the world. Thinking about the journey they had taken together brought a smile to his face. It had been the best preparation in the world for his life with Marius.

It was a perfect Southern California day. That meant it was time for Billy to gather his friends and head to the beach for the day. He wasn't quite sure why Paulie never wanted to go with them, but he usually chalked it up to the man being too responsible a business owner to waste an entire day doing something as frivolous as sitting on the sand or splashing in the Pacific. Still, Billy vowed that one day he would get his boyfriend out during the day. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear the guy was a vampire.

Two of Mortalitus Vitae's patrons had decided on a midnight wedding ceremony followed by a party at the place where they'd met. While the wedding reception was very romantic and festive, seeing the reverie had brought back memories for Dante of similar celebrations held at Paulie's place decades earlier.

Dante's first real love had been dead for over twenty years, but when something reminded him of what he had lost, the pain felt as fresh as the night it happened. Excusing himself from his co-hosting duties, Dante made his way upstairs. He would need a few moments with his thoughts.

"I'm sorry I can't give you things like walks on the beach or kisses at sunset."

Billy looked at Paulie with a slight frown. "What brought this on, love?"

Paulie shrugged and kissed Billy's cheek. "I've just been thinking that ever since I had to turn you, you must miss certain things about your human life."

"I don't want you to worry about that kind of stuff," Billy said softly. "If you hadn't done this, I'd be dead. Trust me when I say that having a life with you is worth so much more than a walk on the beach."

"Where do you think we'll be in fifty years?" Billy asked Paulie as he lazily scratched his lover's back.

"Running the bar," Paulie said with a happy sigh. "Just a little to the left, sweetheart."

Billy smiled and moved his hand. "You don't ever want to sell and just travel the world with me?"

"You want to get out of L.A?"

Shrugging, Billy kissed Paulie's shoulder. "Sometimes I want to see the world. Don't you ever get that way?"

"Nope, I've never suffered from wanderlust. Just Billy lust."

Giggling, Billy climbed onto Paulie's back. "I can live with that."

"How come your brother can go out during the day?" Dante's friend asked him over a beer.

"Some vampires have a genetic mutation that allows it," Dante explained. "I can, too."

"So why don't you?"

Dante looked down at his glass. "I don't think I should have the privilege of enjoying sunshine and blue skies like everyone else."

"Why not?"

"I've done too many things I'm not proud of," Dante said softly. "Jacob and I killed together. I grew out of it. He never did."

"Don't you miss the daylight?"

Dante smiled sadly. "All the time. But that's my penance."

Dante had never been able to accept the truth about what he was. He could accept what he had become, but he could never accept that it was because he had somehow lost his soul, the very thing that made him human. If he were truly as evil as some thought, how would he be able to feel things like love? The summer he'd fallen in love with Paulie had made him feel more human than anything that happened when he was alive. so that had to mean something. He wasn't a demon, no matter what any hunter might say.

Dante watched the family picnicking in the park, smiling at the little girl and her puppy as they shared an ice cream cone. He enjoyed the pretty little picture they all made, the parents giggling at the antics of their child and the family pet. Once upon a time, he had wanted that sort of domestic bliss, but now he knew it wasn't in the cards, and he was all right with it. Whether that was because he genuinely didn't want it anymore or some sort of self-protection had been brought on by his change he didn't know. Or care.

"What do you miss from your other life?"

Dante gives his lover a sleepy smile as he snuggles closer to him. "Why?"

"Just wondering if you ever think about it."

"I do," Dante admits, rubbing his cheek against the cool chest. "I think about a lot of things, but what I miss the most is sitting with Jacob on that rickety old porch swing we had and talking about what the future had in store for us."

His lover holds him tighter. "I'm so sorry you never had the chance to live that life."

Dante nods. "Me too," he whispers.

"Want some?"

Dante shakes his head at the offered joint.

"C'mon, man, let's party."

"I have other means of enjoying myself."

"Peyote? LSD? I got both."

The hippie is starting to annoy him. And he stinks. Whatever possessed Dante to ride a bus in a quest to travel the way 'real' people do is beyond him. He wishes he'd accepted his friend's offer to fly to Europe for a few glorious weeks of dining on the natives. This walking buffet will possibly make him overdose.

"Shut up." Dante's eyes flash, compelling the man.

"Whoa..." The joint is examined. "Good stuff..."

WESTERN UNION

To: Billy Kingston

Dad died. Funeral Sunday.

I was born in 1906. Ragtime was popular then but I didn't get to hear much of it growing up in Kansas. My dad heard it once and didn't like it, so that meant we didn't listen to it. We didn't have a phonograph, so it wasn't as if I could save up my money to buy records and play them on the sly. We didn't even have a radio, but Dad did have a guitar and would play us hymns and folk songs on it. That was it. When I moved to Los Angeles in the 20's, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Imagine never being allowed to listen to anything you can dance to and suddenly having everything available to you. It's been decades since I went to a speakeasy and let loose with some pretty girl on the dance floor, so I can't really remember what was popular back then. I suppose if I looked it up, there are some things that would ring a bell or spark a memory.

A year that was important to me was 1989. My boyfriend was killed in October of that year. The one song that I kept playing over and over again when I couldn't do anything but grieve for him was "Miss You Like Crazy" by Natalie Cole.