Archive of Our Own

She does ask a lot of questions. Questions that are mundane, polite patter to warmbloods; they are extraordinary revelations for a vampire. Yet he tells her-- names-- his family and his sister and his parents, tells her more about Philippe with a few words than many of his kind know.

He can see her filing these tidbits away, to examine later, to try to understand him. He knows he should stop sharing, knows he’s making an unwise decision in bringing her here, sharing this piece of his history with her.

But she looks up at him with those blue eyes, sparkling with delight and wonder and curiosity , and he cannot help himself.

“Godfrey’s copy of the Aurora Consurgens is still in the library here, I believe, if you’d like to see it,” he finds himself saying.

She cocks her head, and he can see her questions about Godfrey die on her lips as they widen into a smile like a child on Christmas, and he cannot regret his offering. “I’d love to see it. Do you know when it was written?”

“Before 1415.” He tamps down the impulse to tell her why he’s certain of that date, why he has Godfrey’s books at all.

She follows him, so trusting, through his dim, ancient house. He’s unsure of his endgame today; he wants her help with the Ashmole manuscript, but he wants to not want her. Looking at her face as she takes in his library is not going to help that, though, not when her mouth forms that O of enchantment, pulse quickening as she leaves his side to trail her fingers along the worn spines of his books.

What would those fingers feel like along his spine?

He tries not to breathe deeply as he steps closer to the shelves where she stands, scanning titles.

“Is that--?” Her voice is hushed, as if they were in the Bodleian and not his home, reverential. One finger hovers at the edge of the Principia .

“It is. Would you like to look at it?” His hand brushes past hers, fleeting, finger resting on the edge of the book. The smell of old leather and parchment is almost enough to overwhelm the sweet scent of her so close. Almost .

She shakes her head, sending honey and willow wafting his direction. Stepping away, continuing her scan of the shelves, no further commentary on the titles, though it is clear she’s adding this to her picture of him. He can sense her opinion shifting, caution receding.

“Here.” He reaches up, away from her, pulling down a heavy volume and presenting it to her. It no longer carries any hint of Godfrey.

Carefully she takes it from him, handling it like a fragile thing. “Is there somewhere I can sit?”

He leads her to his desk, pulls out the chair for her in spite of her earlier protestation about opening doors. Centuries of ingrained manners die hard, and she doesn’t protest this time, too focused on the book. Before sitting, she places it squarely on the desk, then looks around.

“Is there a cradle?”

For a moment he’s confused, then is tempted to open the book flat on the desk for her as he knew had been done hundreds of times over its existence. But she would be horrified, he can see it in her reverential expression as she looks at it, and so he scrambles along the shelves, pulling down lesser titles and old legers to create a makeshift cradle for his own book.

The pale sunlight catches in the errant locks of her hair as she sits at his desk, waiting, quiet, smile playing at her lips. One finger touches the cracking leather of the cover, along the embossed title just barely visible, gilt long worn away.

How would it feel if she traced that finger along his scars?

Placing the stack of books he’s gathered for her on the desk, he steps back, turns to the windows. He busies himself pulling open the draperies, letting in more of the watery grey light. Mist envelops the estate, dreary contrast to the brightness here in the library, where she has assembled a makeshift cradle of books, and is carefully tucking the Aurora Consurgens into it, fully focused on the task in front of her.

He is well practiced in waiting and rests a hip against the casement, watching her. She’s told him she can feel him when he’s watching her, so she cannot be unaware of his attention, but she shows no sign of it as she lifts the cover. There’s a creak of unused leather, and she pauses, assesses, slows her movement as she thoughtfully settles it against the other books, examines the condition of the bindings. He feels superfluous.

She looks up at him, meets his eye, smiling. “This is in excellent condition.”

How would it feel to see her smiling at him like that every day?

“Do you need anything else? Paper, pencil, wine?” He needs to clear his head in air that doesn’t smell of gardens in the spring.

“No, no, I’ve got…” she fumbles for her bag then, and he can hear everything rattling inside before she pulls out a small notebook and simple yellow pencil. She waggles it at him with another brilliant smile that strikes him momentarily mute.

“I’m going downstairs to get a few things from the cellar. Enjoy the book.”

Like a coward, he flees, down into the cellars. There’s a comfortable coolness, darkness, musky antique smells. Crates and casks and bottles, Burgundy and Bordeaux, over a century of vintages, all are reassuringly familiar to him. He knows the taste and aroma in each bottle as he browses through the racks. Taking a few bottles off the shelves, he packs a crate to take back to Oxford with him, resupplying the meagre collection he has in his rooms at All Souls.

One last bottle, wedged awkwardly on top of the dozen, and he makes his way back upstairs. He opens the bottle of Romanee-Conti and leaves it to breathe while he takes the crate out to the car, and he wants to feel normal when he returns to the house, but can’t help but be aware of her, not as he grabs two wine glasses and heads back up to the library.

When he enters the room, she glances up, smiles radiantly, then returns to the book. “The work in this is beautiful.”

He can’t speak for a moment, can’t think of anything more beautiful than what’s right in front of him. “Yes, it is.”

Putting down the glasses and the wine, he tries to focus on the scent of violets and cherries, not of her. But she has permeated the room, is permeating his life. As he pours a glass for each of them, the liquid is dark in the thin light, looks enough like blood that all he can think of are the myriad of reasons this is a very bad idea.

When he hands her the wine, she seems surprised, and they both hold the glass for a beat too long, fingers tangling, cold and warm.

How would that warm flesh feel tangled with his?

He steps back, is glad she cannot hear his heartbeat as he hears hers, pattering just a bit faster, too.

“We shouldn’t have this so close to the books.” She looks at the wine glass, then puts it at arm’s reach on the desk.

He settles onto one of the couches, out of reach of the books, out of reach of her. “There’s more than one book in our libraries stained with wine. Or worse.” Somewhere here was a small Bible that he’d carried through several wars which had seen unspeakable things that he could never tell her about. It reminded him to hold his tongue.

For a second she stares back at him, head tilted with a dozen new questions. But the allure of the volume in front of her is enough for now, and she returns to the task at hand without drawing further history from him.

He watches her with it as he drinks the wine. Hers sits untouched on the desk, all focus on the book. Fingers skim along the edges of the pages, so careful with things she values.

What would it feel like for her to touch him so carefully?

Forcing the thought away, he pours another glass of wine, and asks her about what originally drew him to her. Not that brilliant focus or historic curiosity or those sharp eyes. Ashmole.

He tries to tell himself this is still about Ashmole.

As they leave, as she’s looking at him, his own past comes spilling out almost before he realizes what he’s telling her, how much he’s told her this afternoon. Everything he’s seen, and done, and he sees that smile on her face, knows she’s envisioning the first chocolate, first microscope, first Mozart. He never wants her to have his vivid knowledge of how hard it is kill one of his kind, how it feels to cleave a broadsword through a human from neck to groin, how a queen looks you in the eye as she loses her head.

She stops as he broods, but seems undeterred as she cants her head, appraising. Invites him to dinner.

Everything in his body screams yes, every vampiric instinct he has urging him to have dinner with her, to have her for dinner. Every shred of willpower he’s built up over a millennia tamps down those urges, fights for the civilization of microscopes and Mozart and telling her no . She deserves better than that, better than him.

And yet he finds himself telling her yes , and matching her smile with one of his own.

***