Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 11:31:40 -0500 
 Subject: House Call (vi) 1/1 
To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU 

This is forwarded for Apache, who is no longer able to be on Fkfic-l.
Archiving permission is granted for the fic and ftp sites.

McLisa

From: Apache <lf@chele.cais.net>


******
This story is the sixth in a series that was posted before most of you
were born... or hatched, as the case may be.  It's a string of encounters
between Natalie and Vachon.  This story happens the very next night after
number five, which, I just looked it up, was posted on April 24, 1996.
(Cue the chorusline...'Let's do the time warp agaaainnn...')

In the series, Nat and Vachon have gone forward to build a little on the
acquaintance that began when she came to treat Screed for the Fever. In
number five, the night before this one, Vachon came to Nat's apartment
uninvited to talk to her, somewhat troubled about something; she figured
out it was Tracy, his feelings for her, and the ever-fascinating issue of
whether a human can survive vamp sex. Eventually the conversation pushed
Nat's limits, and she shepherded Vachon out the door with a sort of 'have
a nice life' pat on the back.

*********
House Call (vi)
Apache
PG -- sorry <g
Mel, please archive
usual copyright disclaimers
for Dori


House Call (vi)


 You know what happened in 1228?   There's a book called Timelines,
you can look it up.  The University at Padua was founded, ironically the
first great seat of medical learning in the West, home to the wisdom of
Galen and William Harvey.  The first theories of blood circulation in the
human body were formulated there, with Galen's teaching that some
life-essence, the thing he called by the ancient word for breath/spirit,
'pneuma,' was mixed up in the blood, sent forth from the heart.  Wouldn't
a vampire agree; doesn't a vampire think he gets the essence with the
blood?  In 1228, Peter Abelard was teaching.  The Fifth Crusade started.
The printing press was going to be invented in about two hundred and sixty
years.  Joan of Arc... well, let's not get into that, cause Nick actually
-met- her.
 How?  How?
 There is no one I can ask.  There isn't even anyone I can tell.
What's incredibly frustrating is that a phone call away is a really nice
girl in the almost the same fix, and we can't talk.  I know that she
knows, she thinks that Nick doesn't know, and Vachon knows that I know and
she doesn't know...  aauuugghh!
 I'm almost ready to be on The Jerry Show.  Or-- wasn't there a
fairy tale about a little boy who whispered "the king has donkey's ears"
to some plant?  And the plant turned into a thousand reeds that all
whispered the same thing...
 That's it, Nat.  Talk to the plants.  Who knows, they might be
more talkative than the stiffs.
 Well, than all but one stiff.  But that one, who woke up on my
table six years ago... life, and, for that matter, death, have never been
the same since that night.

 I sighed, and picked up the phone.  It was a number I'd never used
before.
 "Look, I don't really have anyone to discuss vampires with," I
said.  "You wanta talk, you came over... talk.



 "You want me to announce that Javier Vachon's Vampire
Psychotherapy Bar and Blood Bank is open for business?"  He had a wry,
crackling voice, like a barely post-adolescent boy whose voice wasn't sure
it had changed for keeps.
 I gave him a smile that probably looked like it hurt, because his
smirk turned into a grin.
 "Hey... for you, no charge," he said.  "My usual rate is a pound
of flesh."  The vampire looked out his eyes for the smallest second.  I
think I was getting a message that he had actually been kind of offended
last night.
 "OK, I guess I have that coming," I sighed.  "But you gotta admit,
you're in pretty deep.  You weren't on my doorstep for nothing -- and you
-weren't- on it because you wanted to apologize."
 He grinned.  "OK, we'll call it even.  Whaddaya want now?"
 "Okay, look. Last night you fenced with me.  I don't have a
hundred years to indulge in a game of vampire semantics.  There is stuff
I'd like to know from you, and maybe there's stuff you'd like to know from
me, I don't know."
 I folded my arms.  "Joking aside, I think you want to talk about
Tracy Vetter.  You don't want to, suit yourself.  I do want to know if you
have sex with her, yes.  I want to know how it goes.  If that sounds like
kiss and tell to you, I can't help that.  But it does, apparently, have a
bearing on what I'm trying to do for Nick."  I met his eyes.  "With Nick,"
I amended.
 A long silence.  The answer, when it came, was softspoken.  "This
doesn't sound entirely like you're asking for the benefit of science."
 I sighed.  And then drooped a little.  "I suppose not."  I turned
away, found magazines and pillows to busy my hands with, something to
carry to the kitchen, knickknacks to straighten.  Vachon was easy in the
silence, simply watching me.  I finally turned to look right at him.
 "Now I'm the science project, right?" I gave him a wry smile.
"The female of the species in its natural habitat?"
 Vachon's eyes crinkled.  "Something like that.  You want to get to
what's bothering you?"  The smile faded and he shrugged.  "No hurry, I
have all night."
 "Yeah, and all the nights after that, too."
 "Yes," he agreed.  Again, where Nick would have flinched at being
reminded of his vampire nature, Vachon was wholly self-accepting.
 "Could you sit here and talk to me and then just go out and kill
someone else for their blood?" I demanded abruptly.  //Oh my God, where
did that come from?  But we were going to talk about love...//
 Vachon was blindsided, and he reacted by staring and then dropping
the mask that makes him look mortal.  A calm face with very old eyes
looked back as his voice said, "Of course."
 I shook my head.  "I could never--"
 "You could," Vachon interrupted, human-like again.  His voice was
unexpectedly gentle.  "If something brought you across, and you
survived...  And if you don't know that, Knight's been lying to you
bigtime."
 "Which brings us back to... No, Nick doesn't lie to me."  I
dropped into a chair and getting serious.  "There are things he spares me,
that he thinks I don't need to know -- and sometimes when I learn them
anyway, I agree.  Your world is -not- a pretty one, not even compared to
the world of a night shift coroner."  I met his eyes squarely.  "And no, I
don't think I'd want to live in it.  I don't think I'd adapt."  I took a
deep breath.  Oh boy, I'm going to go ahead and say it. "My brother
didn't."
 Naked surprise stood out on Vachon's face -- was harbored in the
age-old eyes.  It was the vampire, not the insouciant human pose, that
silently asked to know more.  //In for a penny, in for a pound.  Some
club,// I was thinking. //Lonelyhearts for ... vampire groupies?//
 I tried to keep it matter of fact.  "Nick brought him across
because I asked him to.  He... went crazy right away.  He didn't...
survive."  Even now, it came out as a euphemism.  I couldn't bear the
mental picture of Nick destroying what was left of Richard.
 "So, for lots of reasons, I'm pretty sure your world isn't what I
want."

 Vachon had gone completely vampire-still.  They're like statues
when they do this.  Janette would do it, too, just pause and fall out of
time somehow.  Nick doesn't do it so much -- his moods can be as
changeable as the wind, but it always seems like there's somebody *there*
in his eyes, someone having emotions, living a life.  But all the other
vampires I've ever seen aren't like Nick.
 I caught myself thinking that.  //Understatement of the century,
Nat.  There is no one like Nick, not anywhere.// It made me smile a
little, actually.  For all his multitude of failings, and all his fears
and miseries, and his desire to run away from hard truths -- and for all
the fact that he isn't a "person" at all, technically speaking -- Nick
Knight is the best person I've ever known.
 Vachon is not like Nick.  In his stillness, he was looking at me
the way Janette would -- like the time I pulled bullets of her and joked
with Nick about where I'd say I found them.  It made me remember how
carefully she noticed everything, how gently the scalpel and the probe
went into her body to find the foreign objects.  She didn't thank me, but
after that... I'd see this look.  This exact look I'm getting from Vachon.
 All he did for he longest time was blink occasionally.  It made me
terribly self-conscious, so I went to the fridge for some cranberry juice.
 "Forget it," I said.  "This was a mistake."
 "I don't think we can talk.  Too many secrets."  Even thinking
about it made me weary. // Let's see Tracy knows X, Vachon knows Y, Nick
knows Z-- and Natalie?  Sometimes Natalie doesn't know a damn thing.  And
other times...//
 "In fact, you know what?  Too many secrets all around."  I sighed,
and gave him a hard look that wasn't really about him at all.
 "You want to know the truth?  Not only do I not belong in it, I am
really tired of the vampire world.  Of the sneaking around.  I think you
guys should just take out an ad in the New York Times that says, 'hey,
we're here.  We control about a fifth of the world's wealth, and if you
don't like us, you can just... fuck yourselves.'"  I almost never use that
word.  Nick would've reeled, but Vachon doesn't know me that well.
 I sighed again.  "In some moods, I'd do it for you."
 Suddenly Vachon was one inch away, his golden vampire eyes
gleaming down at me.  They were darker than Nick's, I noticed, the
unsleeping scientist corner of my brain wondering if that was age-related
or just personal to the vampire.  Blue eyes, brown eyes?  Did it matter
right now?  Was Vachon about to bite?  //Nick, now would be a good time to
phone...//
 "Cut it out, Vachon," I said, bluffing.  "You know damn well I
wouldn't dream of it."
 But he didn't cut it out.  "You're not the only one who keeps a
secret, doctor," he said expressionlessly.  "And your secret, whispered in
a certain direction...  Knight should have done it.  I should do it."
 "You're being a bully," I said, forcing the voice through terror.
 "A vampire, doctor."  But he wasn't moving in on my neck.
 Now I was angry.  "You don't like jokes?  I don't like threats.
Bite me.  Or don't.  Just spare me the self-righteous Our Community act."
//Your community owes me,// I thought, but I was damned if I would say it.
 He backed away.  His eyes flushed back to dark brown. "Okay,
then," I snapped.
 He shrugged. "Sometimes you feel like a Nat.  Sometimes you
don't."
 //Enough already.// "You are such a poseur, Vachon," I snapped
again.  "Does Tracy buy this act?"  Just the clinical part of my mind was
remarking that he had actually never answered any question about Tracy, he
answered this one.
 "No.  Never."  It came with a grin.  "Does Knight buy yours?"
 "I don't know what you're talking about."  Actually, I did, but a
good piece of movie dialogue like that can buy you some time.
 He grinned again. "I'd ask if you buy his, but he's got so many
acts, how could you answer?"  He is a maddening son of a bitch, this
Vachon.
 "And you're a tease, beautiful Natalie-- is that the real story?"
 "Will you please stop calling me that..."
 "You're right," Vachon said.  "You're not beautiful."
 "Oh--that's--great," I said.  "That's a wonderful improvement.
Just what I needed to hear.  The dead guy thinks I'm not beautiful after
all."
 "You're not," Vachon said cheerfully.  He reached out and plucked
at the ends of my hair, took one of the curls between his fingers and
delicately pulled it out long, nearly straight, so the color caught the
light.  "You're something better.  Splendid.  Unique.  And you hide
yourself among the dead-- and the undead."  He flashed his wolfish grin.
"Like I said, you're a fool or Knight is."  He let go of the hair.
"Actually, I think maybe you both are."
 "Pot calling the kettle black," I said sourly.  But I was glad he
quit with the hair and the eyes, because that vampire seduction thing is
really tough to fight... //Lacroix, for example, even creepy, cruel
Lacroix... and Vachon is actually nice.  At least most of the time.  I
think.//  I shook the thought off.
 Last night, it was just a joke to help me stay awake, but now I
felt a real desire to counsel Vachon, help him if I could.  But what is
there to say?  Good luck not killing your girlfriend?
 "About Tracy.... I can't tell you not to," I said, feeling my way,
"and yet I probably should.  I guess we all have to make our own
choices..."  I don't know who I was talking about anymore.
 I took the coffee cup back to the kitchen.  "Part of me would like
to tell you you shouldn't do it.  But we all have to make our own choices.
But there will be consequences."
 "You want to know if Knight loves you," he said very gently. I
gasped and shook my head -- but couldn't bring out the words to deny it.
 "I can't answer that.  You want to know if vampires feel love?"
He sighed.  "I think so."  His eyes swung to meet mine.  "Remember -- we
have twenty, thirty years of what you are-- but hundreds of what we are."
He gave a small coughing laugh, and his eyes wandered away again.  He got
thoughtful, and licked his lips before speaking.
 "In some ways, what I know of what you call 'love' comes out of
the movies, Natalie.  The passions of a mortal life..."  A pause, and he
shrugged. "' We'll always have Paris.' 'I'd rather be his whore than your
wife.' 'It's like flying'..." He shrugged again. "I can fly.  Whatever I
feel, it's not like that.  But I don't know what it -is- like, not for
sure."
 His eyes came back to mine. He looked terribly unsure, terribly
young, and it seemed like a true picture of what he was feeling despite
the five hundred years.  He reached out and took a strand of my hair in
his fingers again, but it wasn't me he was seeing.  Or not just me.
 "I'd like to know," he said in an intense whisper.
 My mouth had fallen a little way open.  Feelings like this?  This
smirky, sarcastic, superficial....?
 "Boy, you really do fly under radar, don't you?"  I said.  And
Tracy Vetter never bought his act?  "So does she," I muttered under my
breath, but he heard it and his eyebrows went up.
 "So what's in this for you?" I said.
 Vachon leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. His words
were almost inaudible. "I don't understand why a twenty-six year old
mortal makes me happy."
 "But she does?"  I spoke almost as quietly.
 "Yes."  The eyes travelled around as if different sections of the
ceiling each had their tale to tell.
 "Do you make her happy?"
 His head jerked forward -- he frowned with confusion, which was an
answer in itself.  "Sometimes... " a deeper frown.  "I want to."
 "Is that why you're going to go through with this?"
 He continued to look at me intently, but his eyebrows pulled
apart, his eyes unfocused -- and when he came back, he gave me a
schoolboyish grin.  "Not entirely."
 His grin spread and turned into the wolfish grin that makes me
start thinking of his victims-- what better way to get food than make it
want you? Make it love you?  My mind wandered again...// does Nick have a
look like that that I've never seen?  Did he go out in the evenings and
turn on that sexy smile, with all the hidden strength shining out behind
it?  And then five minutes later it's over.... where do you go with that
smile then?//
 "Do you have a relationship with a vampire?"
 It came out of me without thinking.  Vachon's posture instantly
went taut again, and his eyes pinned me.  I felt an intuitive certainty
that if he does, Tracy doesn't know anything about it.  It wasn't actually
the two of them I was thinking of, but Nick and Janette, that air between
them, always thick with history -- and Nick would never say how much.
Off limits, off limits -- but how could I help but wonder if he went to
her? // A woman he couldn't hurt...//
 ...A mercy fuck,' in the ugly phrase of medical residents.
You're on duty forty eight hours during which you're not allowed to sleep
-- what else are you going to do in the cot room?  Grab a little sex,
because who has time to date?
 "I'm asking because I don't know how you guys live."  He relaxed a
little.  "Unlive," I cracked.  He smiled, so I pressed on.  "Like if
you pair off, marry..."
 His eyes flashed.  "We hunt together."  He smiled blandly, but it
was a taunt, and I gave it a resigned nod.  "Yes, sometimes," he said more
seriously, then frowned.  "It's often a matter of, mmm, family."
 "Master/child?"  His face cleared. "Yes."  He added, more softly,
"and in my case, yes."
 In ten minutes I'd gotten more straight answers from Vachon than
in four years with Nick -- and now this.  It practically knocked the wind
out of me.
 "How do you expect Tracy to handle this?" I said.  In my
mind's eyes, I was seeing the way Nick and Janette would tilt toward each
other easily, the quick darting looks they'd give each other, full of
messages that were as foreign to me as the noises only dogs can hear.
"You said it yourself, she's only 26.  Or will you--?"
 The schoolboy grin again.  "You're asking me a lot of questions--"
 "--that you don't ask yourself," I finished for him.  I gave him a
twisted smile.  "My favorite kind, believe me."
 The flashing grin.  "Touche."  He shrugged.  "You know, like, I'll
burn that bridge when I get to it?"
 I caught myself smiling back.  Charm and likeability -- never mind
vampire charm, many perfectly mortal people float through life that way,
catching a slide or some slack because of that easygoing, yeah I'm a jerk
oh well, self-deprecating acknowledgement.  Can a vampire slide by like
that for centuries?  Did Nick?
 "You can't play with Tracy's life that way," I said.  "It's not a
good enough answer."
 His face froze into a very Nick expression:  the pout of a vampire
whose just been told something he doesn't like.  I laughed, and of course
he didn't know why.
 And it was too much.  No farewells, just whoosh, the vampire
doctor was no longer in.  And I had no idea how he got out of the room,
didn't even hear the door open and close at some incredible speed.
 "Sorry, Vachon," I said out loud, in case he could still hear me
somehow.  "Pot asking the kettle not to be, ya know?"

**************
Apache
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