Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 07:49:27 -0600 From: Lady Sushi Subject: Song Challenge: "Trust", 1/1 "Trust" Original song by The Cure Susan Schaefer (c) 1996, S. Schaefer I give permission to archive, post, or burn. Usual disclaimers here part one of one The grip on Nick's arm grew tighter a moment, nails drawing blood from pale flesh. Suddenly it fell away. It was too late. Not even the blood could bring him back. "Don't go, you can't go," Nick whispered, a single tear falling down his cheek. It splashed onto short blond hair, turning it red. "Come back, please. I'll be good." LaCroix didn't respond. His dead, blue, blue eyes stared glassily at the ceiling. **there is no-one left in the world that i can hold onto** When Natalie had told him about the cancer devouring her bones, Nick thought he'd die. For the two months she survived, in pain, not responding to the phalanx of therapy, he stayed with her. He watched as she withered. His facade of cheerfulness fell away as soon as he saw her final x-rays; even an amateur could recognize that slow death. However, she did not die of cancer. "Let me bring you across," he begged. She always said no. "Don't, Nick. Kill me or let me die, but don't bring me across." He clutched her fragile hand with those words. "I can't kill you, Nat." "Then let me die." He didn't want to do that either. He let her suffer, just because he couldn't let her die. So she asked LaCroix. He complied. Nick saw her emaciated corpse later; her first smile in a long time lay on her lips. **there is really no-one left at all there is only you** Nicholas hated LaCroix for that. His beloved Natalie had been ripped from life by that pitiful excuse for a madman. He stopped going to the Raven, stopped listening to the Nightcrawler. He stopped being Nick. Lacroix came to the funeral. Something ashen lay through his body and soul, but Nick only imagined him mocking poor Natalie. When LaCroix approached him at the end of it all he lay a hand upon his son's shoulder. Nick shook it off, glared. "I'm sorry," was all the elder said. When he walked away, he did so with a slight limp. Nick told himself he'd heard LaCroix laughing, even though his ears never registered the sound. He stayed at her grave almost until sunrise. When he finally went back to the loft there was a note from LaCroix on his door. Nick threw it away without reading it. Nick didn't see LaCroix again for six months. Then there was the shooting near the Raven. One person was killed. The suspect had confessed at the scene, holding the victim, his brother, rocking him, rocking him, telling him it would be okay. For some reason it made Nick want to see LaCroix. The Raven was unusually empty that night. Only a few vampyres were there, no mortals. Vachon, Urs, Miklos, Alma, others. Urs looked up as he walked in. "He was hoping you'd come." "Who? Why?" Vachon stood up vioently, smashed his glass on the floor. "LaCroix, dammit. Let him tell you why, like you deserve to know." He stormed to the "Employees Only" door. "Well?" Nick followed. Vachon opened the door, stood there. "Aren't you going in?" "No, *I've* already seen him. Unlike *some* people, I have a heart." Vachon continued to glare at Nick until he obeyed. The door slammed closed behind him. Everything was dark, except a faint streak under LaCroix's room door. **and if you leave me now you leave all that were undone** "LaCroix?" Nick stuck his head in the room. "Nicholas..." his master's voice was weak, rough. It reminded him of Natalie's before she died. Natalie... "Nicholas, come here. I need to talk to you." It came from the curtained bed. Nick did as told, pulled back the thick velvet curtain. He gasped. LaCroix was wasted, skin literally grey. Even his commanding eyes looked tired, old, almost dead. "What happened?" Nick was too shocked to move. LaCroix closed his eyes wearily. "I don't know. It started the night I relieved Natalie of her pain. Something in her blood--" he coughed, loud, horrible wracking noises which tore through Nick's soul. A bit of dried blood appeared on LaCroix's lips. Nick sat on the bed next to LaCroix, started to wipe the crust away. "No, don't touch it." The elder brushed the brown off with a shaking hand. Nick, hatred gone, took his father's other hand. "You're dying." The old LaCroix came back to those autumn-sky eyes. "How perceptive of you, Nicholas. Perhaps you'll next tell me the sky is black." He coughed again, winced. "I would ask you to kill me, but I'm doing a rather fine job of it on my own." They were quiet. Just for a moment. "Why did you kill her?" "Because, Nicholas, she asked. What better reason is there?" "But..." Nick flushed; anger rose in his chest. "What better reason *isn't* there?" LaCroix looked at him and sighed. "She was dying, Nicholas, as I am. It's not pleasant I can tell you. You were too immature to notice." "How was I too immature?" Nick almost yelled. He caught himself. More quietly, "How was I too immature?" Lacroix turned his head away from Nicholas. "Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says: 'I need you because I love you.'" He closed his eyes again. The general is dying, Rome, come and pay your respects... "What?" Nick hadn't expected all that. LaCroix struggled to speak now, exhausted. "Erich Fromm. 1956. He could have been speaking of you." **there is really no-one left you are the only one** It hit him: LaCroix was right. Nick had loved Natalie not because he wanted to but because he needed to. When that need was threatened he'd refused to move forward and live without her. LaCroix, however, out of love for her or him or both, had given her freedom and sacrificed himself in the process. Nick felt foolish, realized he was jealous. Why shouldn't he be? He was an 800-year-old little boy. Nick couldn't cry, though. The saddest eyes are those which cannot weep. **and still the hardest part for you to put your trust in me i love you more than i can say why won't you just believe?** He stayed with LaCroix for another hour, in silence. He watched helplessly as Death pulled at the prize it had so long wanted, now teased to claim. Occasionally LaCroix would cough, bringing up more of those horrid rusty clots. It was just striking midnight when Lacroix opened his eyes. He grasped Nick's arm with as much strength as he could. "Nicholas?" "Yes?" "Put a white rose on her grave for me." Nick nodded. Suddenly LaCroix choked, air clogging his throat. His body jerked and racked, eyes wdie. Nick tried to still him. Blood ran from the half-moons in his arms even as it welled in his eyes. Seconds later LaCroix stopped moving. He was dead. **and still the hardest part for you to put your trust in me** Ten years later Nick returned to Toronto, just because. He drove the green Caddy slowly past the Raven, now in Urs' care, past the 96th, the loft. Eventually he came across the cemetery. It took him a minute to decide but he went in. He found their graves, side by side, without looking, remembering the two roses he'd left, one white, the other red. He looked down where Natalie and LaCroix lay-- And gasped. He kneeled, fingering the rosebush covering the graves, the red and white blooms on the one plant; they were full and perfect, even on that cold December night. It reminded him of a story he'd once read, a story about a red fern... As the last of his grief flooded from him, he watered the bush with his tears. **i love you more than i can say why won't you just believe?** FINIS Cousin "Susan" Phoenix, Camera Fanatic of the Thong Throng A Real Maan. phoenix@ionet.net *I'd be nothing if not cold.* ~~~Nigel I wanted a steak, not a STAKE.