milliways_bar | (no subject)

He smiles. "Whenever you're ready, love, and you know? The beginning. I've heard that's a very good place to start."

"I'm ready now. Which beginning do you want? There are several."

A small smirk.

"Whichever one you want to give. Tell me about before you knew Door."

Richard shifts to lay down in David's lap next to Amadeo. Good thing that David has long legs.

"Before I met Door I was in my securities and public relations job and I was engaged to Jessica Bartram. This was about five years after I'd left Scotland."

He nods and strokes Richard's hair.

"Yes, I remember you told me you were engaged. Go on."

"Do you want to hear about her?"

He rolls onto his back and settles Amadeo onto his chest.

He nods. "If you think it's appropriate. You've read our books; they're superfluous to the max."

And a smile, and his hand rests on Armand's hair.

And Richard tells him all about the company trip to France where he met Jessica in a museum, and could never convince her after that that he hated museums. He talks about the year that they dated, Jessica's proposal, and their eighteen month engagement after.

".....and then one night we were going out to meet her boss for supper, and I tripped over a young girl who was lying on the pavement. I saw that she was hurt and bleeding and I stopped to help her. Jessica was worried that we'd be late, and I'd make a poor impression on Mr. Stockton. She told me to call emergency services and leave Door where we found her. I wouldn't, and she dumped me, and then I took Door back to my flat to patch her up."

He raises an eyebrow.

"A formidable woman, oui?" he says. "What then?"

He chuckles. "You don't know the half of it. Jessica was something else. Then.....my life turned upside down. Everything that I had ever been told was imaginary turned out to be solid fact. Vampires, Angels, Shepherds, Blackfriars, the whole lot...."

He tells David about tracking down the Marquis de Carabas, and all the madness that followed. He takes a deep breath and sooths Amadeo, who had actually snarled during the nastier parts.

David blinks.

And takes mental stock of it all.

"So... there are vampires that are not vampires in London Below. Interesting."

He shakes his head and merely says, "wow," as he takes it all in.

"Right. Is that all? Nothing else. Just... death-defying adventure and... wow."

He nods.

"Right, the Velvets, they feed directly on your life-source rather than on your blood. Really nasty bitches."

He shudders at the memory.

"That's most of it. Then I got sent back to London Above for a few weeks, and then I went back and spent two years wandering around London homeless, and then Bar called me here."

David's hand soothes through Richard's hair.

"Why did you choose it? To go back Below, when you knew... what it'd do to you?"

And that's the million pound question. Richard had already asked himself that a dozen times or more.

"Because....I didn't fit. That life wasn't real anymore. It may never have been real, I mean, who knows where Door sent me, although I'm sure she had the best intentions. And I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd left behind in London Below and the ways that I could help there that were way more meaningful than making sure that some geek's computer files couldn't be breached."

He nods.

"I think I can understand that, love," he says and moves his hand from Richard's hair to Armand's, who lays, very quietly, with his knuckles turning white, on Richard's chest.

Richard shifts his attention to his lover and sends love and reassurance down the bloodlink.

"Are you all right, Amadeo? You've been very quiet."

His jaw is clenched very, very hard, and as much as he tries not to, Richard may feel hate fear anger murder in the bloodlink, however small, and he looks up at his fiancé - his Richard, his love - and bloodtears shine in his eyes.

"I want to hurt them."

Richard responds with petting and soothing and love and comfort down the link.

"Shhshhshh, they're gone, beloved, they'll never come back."

His fingers tighten in Richard's shirt and he calms, but only a little.

"But they - she - that... thing tried to kill you."

His voice is small and kittenish. He knows that there are plenty of things that could have prevented he and Richard from ever meeting, let alone being together, but...

The thought haunts him.

"Who, Lamia? No, she wouldn't have killed me, for all that it hurt. If she'd finished the feeding, I would have become a Velvet like her."

He pets Armand and takes a few more breaths.

"Lamia actually likes me, in her own way. As much as she can like anything. She was just hunting and following her instincts."

He pouts and nods, and snuggles into Richard.

"Good, then."

He can't be hypocritical, here.

He closes his eyes and relaxes.

"She left the least of my scars. Just a slight drop in body temperature."

He puts a cold hand on the small of Amadeo's back.

He sighs at the cold hand on his back. It's barely perceptable with his own body temperature being what it is, but he still notices.

And he sighs.

"I worry that this is the least of your scars..."

He shrugs and snuggles up to them.

"Could have been much worse. The Blackfriars managed to save my ear and none of my broken ribs punctured a lung. I was lucky."

He moans, and not in a good way.

"Not making it better, Mayhew!"