The Hunt

Andreji stood in the kitchen and put tea bags into two cups. Whooshing noises came from the water cooker. The bathroom door was opened. Demyan came out, dressed in a bathrobe, rubbing his hair dry.



“How do you feel?” Andreji asked him, filling the cups with seething water.



“Better, thank you. Though I think I need something more nutritious than tea soon.” The man sank leisurely onto one of the chairs.



“Do you need my blood?” Andreji enquired, his voice low. He turned around to throw a side glance at his Master. The look upon his face showed that he did not make this offer lightly.



Demyan considered it for a moment. Then he shook his head. “Thank you. I appreciate the gesture, but I think I will recover without your blood in time. I am not badly wounded, merely underfed.”



With a short nod, Andreji turned back to his task and removed the tea bags. He carried the cups to the table and sat down as well.



“Where is your fledgling?” Demyan asked.



“He has a part-time employment in Le Havre.”



Demyan nodded. “So you keep him on the long leash, just as I did with you?”



Andreji smirked. “Neither of us had a choice. I was too fond of my freedom for reasons you very well know, he is too fond of his because he has grown up in a time in which freedom is a promise made to everyone. Furthermore, exerting more control over him equals giving up more of my freedom…”



Demyan smiled amusedly. “How long have you been knowing each other?”



Andreji’s raised eyebrows while he stared into his cup told Demyan that he had to think about that question. “15, 16 months, something like that.”



“And how come you changed your mind about the matter of taking a fledgling? Speaking of freedom and independence…”



An ironic smirk. Light grey eyes peered out of the window. Andreji hated talking about his motives, Demyan knew that. Yet Andreji also knew that Demyan had the right to ask. It was only natural that he should be interested in the on-goings in his fledgling’s life after such a long absence. He thought for a while how to give an honest answer without conveying too much, then he settled for- “I would not have decided on taking a fledgling if I had known you were alive.”



His Master eyed him intently. “And now?”



Andreji sipped his tea and pushed his chair back.



Demyan knew that the other man felt uncomfortable in the situation, that he felt hemmed in by such intimate talk.



“Now I realise that it was the best decision to move on.” He glanced at his Master with a telling look. “We were not made for each other; it never worked. I only took what I needed from you, deliberately ignoring what you wanted because that was no option for me. It is time for the both of us to move on. I guess you tried that with her - I am confident that I can manage that with him.”



“I see.”



“What about you?” Andreji redirected the question.



“Well, in fact I had intended to talk with you exactly about that when I invited you to my house back then. About moving on…”



Andreji closed his eyes and snickered into the hand that supported his chin. “I would have flared you alive!” he murmured.



“Yes, I feared so, too.”



For a while they sat in silence.



Andreji got up and put his cup away. He placed a hand on Demyan’s shoulder. “Stay with us for a while. Perhaps you can even help introducing River to his new existence. And we in turn can help you recover and get along in this fast changing world.”



He was half out of the room when he added, “Shall I try and find someone who is willing to donate a bit blood tonight?”



Demyan nodded. “Please.”







River entered the house. It looked deserted, yet he had seen Andreji’s motorbike. “Andreji?” He waited. No sound. “Great.” He flung his bag disappointedly into a corner and went into the kitchen. After peering into the refrigerator, he decided on a quick spaghetti Bolognese – that much even he could cook.



Twenty minutes later, he carried the laden plate through the empty house into his room. He opened his notebook and pressed the power button. It booted up.



Sitting on his bed and eating his pasta, River wondered where the two men had gone. Despite Andreji’s obvious attempts to reassure him, River had grown restless the closer the evening had come, anxious what it might bring. Now he sat here alone.







At one o’clock in the morning, Andreji and Demyan stepped through the garden gate. The taller man opened the door to the house for the other. “Excuse me, now. I need to be alone for a moment.”



“Of course.”



Demyan entered the house. He set the two shopping bags he carried on the ground and shrugged out of the new coat.



To his left, the door was opened. “Andreji?” River stepped out.



“He is gone for a walk,” Demyan replied.



“Been shopping?” River asked, eyeing the bags and pretending to be interested.



“Yes. Andreji got wind of a shopping centre that opened until midnight. We thought you might prefer to have your clothes to yourself.” Demyan smiled meekly.



“How considerate.” River went back into his room and closed the door.







An hour and a half later, Andreji silently opened the door to River’s room. He noiselessly walked up to his bed, lifted the cover, and slipped beneath it.



The young man snuggled up to him in his sleep.



The door, that had stood ajar, was pushed open. Demyan looked at the young man taking comfort in his former companion’s arms. “The situation is not easy on him,” he observed quietly.



Andreji nodded minutely. “It is only natural. He did not ask to be made a vampire. Yet he came to terms with it because the attraction of a fledgling to his Master overwhelmed him. However, I do not fit his wild dreams of romantic love. Now you, a man that he knows I have bemourned for many years, the only weak spot he ever found in me, reappears. It is understandable that the matter unsettles him. He is quite the sensitive type.”



Demyan folded his arms intrigued. “Is that why you feel attracted to him? Because he is soft? Less masculine than – say – me? You always preferred the ‘boyish’ types, if your affairs were male at all,” he observed.



“I feel more comfortable around them, yes,” Andreji admitted.



The boy stirred. He lifted his head and opened his eyes. Looking from Andreji to Demyan and back, he asked, “What’s up?”



Andreji smiled. “Nothing. We were just having a conversation.”



“In my bedroom?”



“I’m sorry,” Demyan intervened. “I did not mean to intrude upon your privacy.” He closed the door and could be heard going down the corridor.



River sat up. “I’d hoped you’d be there when I come home,” he said in a rather upset tone to Andreji.



“Demyan needed blood,” his Master replied apologetically.



“And clothes,” River added sharply.



“And clothes,” Andreji conceded in a calm manner. “I thought that was in your interest as well.”



“Yes, yes, I’ve heard that before!” River looked away.



Fingers settled gently under his chin and turned his face around. “What is it? Speak your mind. You are not upset about me not being at home. That has happened many times already since we live together…”



“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t upset me,” River retorted. He sighed. “Of course that’s not it. I…” He sought for the right words. “There’s so much happened in the last year.” He crawled out of bed and stepped towards the window. After a moment, he slumped down into his beanbag, now fully awake, his head brimming with thoughts and sudden realisations. “In fact, there has so much happened in the last five or six years. I guess you’ll laugh at me for being whiny, but… you know, seeing my mother die and loosing most of my friends in the course wasn’t exactly pleasant. I felt a bit lost, to tell the truth. Of course, I still had my uncle and his family, but I did not want to put too much weight on their shoulders either. They have enough on their plate.” Once he had started, River suddenly could not stop.



“Then I joined Ray’s troupe, moved in with Lukas and Nancy, and thought I might have found something like a new home, that after a while they’d respect me as an equal. Never happened. I was always the little one, the inexperienced newbie who got the easy jobs that no one else wanted. You said my lack of skill was Ray’s fault, but really, I think it was mine. Ray expected autonomous learning. Lukas had tons of books, as you saw. No matter if you thought they were useless, they were there. They were a source of knowledge I never used. What I mean is, I expected things to work out on their own. I thought it was enough to I collect experience in the field, that everything would fall into my lap, when I should have taken my education into my own hands by actually preparing myself.



“And I guess I’ve been doing the same with you. I struggled a bit in the beginning against the course of my life being changed without me having a say in the matter, but in the end I closed my eyes and let it happen. I trusted you blindly, even though there situations that bothered me. There were so many things I should have questioned, so many times when I should have demanded answers from you, but I didn’t. Or I was content with a small piece of the truth. I…” He smiled uneasily and dragged his fingers nervously through his hair. “I guess I just wanted to belong. Somewhere. To someone. You said I was bound to you. D’you have any idea how powerful a promise that is?” He stared at his Master.



Andreji looked at him calmly, no sign of the amusement that River had expected on his face but an expression of serious interest in what his fledgling had to say. That comforted River somewhat. However, the elder man either considered this question a rhetorical one or was not willing to give an answer.



After a while, River reformed his question. “Are you going to keep that promise? You never bound yourself to me, did you? The bound only exists the other way around. You never drank my blood. I depend on you, but you could easily go off with him,” he pointed vaguely towards the library, “and forget about me entirely.”



Andreji folded his arms and looked thoughtfully at the young man. He did not give a reply for a long time.



River felt on edge. He felt naked, unprotected, foolish, having exposed himself like that. Most of the thoughts had just in that moment taken shape and fallen into place. He was not sure if he had ‘nailed it’, but at this point everything made sense to him. He had been too passive, had rather put his head in the sand than faced a perhaps unsettling truth. Why to hell did Andreji not say anything!?



“If your mother awoke from the dead, would you go off with her and forget about me?” Andreji suddenly asked.



“That’s hardly the point!” River said unnerved and perplexed, feeling that Andreji did not understand him or redirected the topic on purpose. “I never slept with my mother!”



“Neither did I with Demyan,” Andreji retorted calmly.



River opened his mouth to protest, but Andreji put up a hand to stop him.



“Yes, we have shared bed a few times, on his initiation, without ever going that far. However, that was at no point what our relationship was about. At least not for me. I have never regarded him as a lover. I would never accept him as a lover. He knows that, and I think he has made his peace with it. He says so.



“I bemoaned his loss because he was the only person that has ever truly been loyal to me. He was like father, teacher, and best friend in one person. Even when I went my own ways, which I did often, as I have already mentioned to you, I always knew he was someone I could rely on in case I needed help or advise. He was there. That was his merit. And that is why it was so hard to lose him. He grounded me, and with his death, the ground under my feet was suddenly gone.” Andreji sighed.



“I am glad that he is back, but that has nothing to do with us. I think you have something to offer me, something I would not find in him. Despite your indeed very… acquiescent demeanour, you refresh me. You are a new task in my life, someone who gives me cause to go new ways. That means more than I am willing to speak out aloud.” Andreji smiled meaningfully.



River snorted in amusement and relief. He brushed his hair behind his ears and fixed his gaze on Andreji. “So, things between us are unchanged?”



Andreji rose, smiling benignly. “Yes. Although you might still want to pose some of those questions you have mentioned. I think there are many things that you are not fully aware of yet or that you do not know about at all. However,” Andreji bent forward and kissed River gently on his cheek before he whispered into his ear, “you will find that there are two people in this house who both have a similar amount of knowledge about vampirism as well as my past and one of them is much more talkative than the other.”



He wanted to straighten up, but River caught him in an embrace. The conversation had exhausted the blond; he needed to physically feel that everything was alright between him and his Master to be completely at peace. Giving in, Andreji sank onto his knees and held the young man.