Andante stood before the tanning rack, methodically breaking down leather into strips. It wasn’t that he needed more leather strips, it was just that tearing leather was one of the mindless things he could do to occupy himself while his mind was racing. He had stepped away from Brynjolf, pushed past him into the room and begun working on things – smelting ore, preparing fur plates and now simply tearing, tearing, tearing as he failed to calm himself. He didn’t know where Brynjolf was at the moment, and didn’t think he could bear to go looking.
Brynjolf had tried to make conversation, briefly.
“So what is it that we have to do now, lad?”
Andante had been so distracted by his own thoughts that it had taken him a moment to come back to reality.
“There’s a place called Dimhollow Crypt. We need to go there. Or at least I do…”
His statements had dribbled off into nothingness as he began doing mindless work.
“Yes?” Brynjolf asked. “And?”
I have never cared about anyone but myself before, so far as I know. Maybe there was someone, before, but I’ll never know it. And what was I, before, that I should have earned this punishment – to know that what I’ve been feeling will never be returned?
He frowned, his brow furrowed harder than he could ever remember furrowing it before. He couldn’t have been a good person. He knew that without question. No, I was some kind of monster, just as I am now. I must have been. And I didn’t love anyone and nobody loved me, and it’s the same now – with one difference.
A good person wouldn’t have known, without being taught, how to kill another without being heard, or seen, he thought. That was a skill learned through long practice. A good person wouldn’t have been able to reach into a pocket and, without being heard or felt, remove a gemstone or a bottle of skooma.
That thought stopped him cold, in mid-tear, and a powerful urge flooded over him, crowding out any other thoughts he’d been having. He straightened; then he turned and walked out the door, stopping to drop the leather strips in the bottom drawer of the cabinet near the door. He strode across the open space toward the bedroom, and had just begun leaning down to slide open the table on the left side of the bed when he heard Brynjolf behind him.
“Stop.”
His shoulders drooped, and he sighed, but he stopped where he was.
“Why?”
“Because you’re human right now and you know what can happen.”
“Yes. It didn’t happen to you, though, did it? It can, but it won’t, because I’m not an addict.”
He heard Brynjolf’s soft footsteps approaching him from behind.
“How do you know that, lad?” he said, softly. “You’ve had a powerful habit, ever since I’ve known you. It had to have come from somewhere.”
Andante stared at the floor, chewing the inside of his mouth, thinking about it. He’s right; I do have a bad habit. I want some, desperately, and I shouldn’t. As soon as he’d had the thought, the desire had begun gnawing at him. And he’s right, I don’t have any way to know whether I was an addict at some point or not.
“Yes. Of course. You’re right, why wouldn’t you be right? It had to have come from somewhere,” he answered, not turning around, frustrated beyond reason. Words began tumbling out of him, a great rush of frustration that turned to anger.
“And I don’t know where that somewhere was, Brynjolf, damn it all. I do not know. I do not know why I was in prison clothes and beaten until I was only half alive. I don’t know who I was, I don’t know what I was, what kinds of things I did or enjoyed or hated. I don’t know whether there ever was a single person in the world who has ever cared whether I lived or died. I have no life aside from what has happened in the last couple of years. It makes me jealous to hear you talk about Dynjyl and do you know why? You have a youth that you remember. I don’t. It makes me angry. It makes me want to kill things. And because of all that, I want some gods damned skooma right now because otherwise I am going to go find myself a saber cat and fight it without any weapons.”
“I’m sorry, Andante.”
“For what?”
Brynjolf sighed.
“For letting myself get all wrapped up in my own problems and forget who I was talking to. That was truly unkind of me. You don’t need to hear about me missing my wife.”
“Well, you were just telling me the truth,” he said, knowing that he was not succeeding in keeping an edge of sarcasm out of his voice. “I don’t know what else I might have expected, truthfully. It’s not as though I didn’t push you as hard as I could. At least there are a lot of things that make sense now, that didn’t, before. If we ever have another meeting with Delvin, Roggi, and Dardeh at least I won’t be the only one in the room without a clue.”
“I am sorry.”
“And I… am about to have a nice little break with the help of one of these bottles in here.” He reached for the drawer again.
STOP. NOW. DON’T MOVE.
Andante grimaced, but he couldn’t continue bending.
“Damn it, Brynjolf, let go of me.”
“No. Turn around. I want to tell you something.”
Andante gritted his teeth against the compulsion Brynjolf was exerting on him but couldn’t get the better of it. He turned around, slowly, and looked into Brynjolf’s bottomless golden eyes. And he felt himself drowning, slowly.
“Bryn.” Please. Please don’t do this to me.
“Andante. Listen to me.” He paused a couple of beats, as though considering his next words very carefully. “Yes, I love my wife. I expected to spend the rest of my life with her, but she has made it abundantly clear that will not be the case. I will always love my wife. But she isn’t here now.”
And is this supposed to make me feel better? I seem to be the only one whose feelings do not matter in this equation. Damn you, Brynjolf, you manipulated me…
“And Dynjyl isn’t here, either. But I look like him, don’t I? Enough to catch your eye, enough for you to want to…” He surprised himself as his voice caught, bitter in his throat.
Brynjolf clearly hadn’t been expecting that. His eyebrows rose and then came together in a frown.
“Yes. You’re right.”
And there it is. He doesn’t care about me; I was just a means to an end.
Brynjolf stepped forward, then, and took Andante by the shoulders in a grip that nearly had Andante gasping. By the Eight he’s powerful. This is what it’s like, then, the difference between how I am now and when I was vampire.
“You’re right, and I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve to be used like that. I used you and I will admit it, and I’m sorry.”
Andante sneered. “Well it’s not as though the thought hadn’t occurred to me, my dear. I was… willing to be used, to some extent.”
Brynjolf sneered back at him, and his fangs protruded slightly from under his upper lip. “But you didn’t consider this, did you, lad. I’m still here. I’ve been here, haven’t I. I didn’t just sleep with you, have you turn me, and then leave, did I? Why do you suppose that is?”
Andante grimaced. “Because I am convenient. And because you know I will do what you want.”
One eyebrow went up. “Is that so? Who was it who was telling me he could snap me in two, not very many nights ago?”
Damn, he’s got me there. And physically, as well; Andante wasn’t able to move. “Stop, now,” had been far more powerful than his brain was able to overcome.
“Well then, why exactly are you here, still?”
Brynjolf smiled, and a shudder started somewhere deep in Andante’s core and rolled out through the rest of his body. This wasn’t a happy smile, nor a sardonic one; this was the face he’d seen right after Brynjolf turned, and his eyes were greedy, and dark, and bottomless. He stepped closer and dropped one hand down Andante’s back and pulled him close.
“I am here,” he said, slipping his other hand up to begin working the fastenings on Andante’s armor, “because you are not like anyone else I’ve ever known. I am here,” he said, leaning forward to run his lips along Andante’s neck, “because you taste good, Andante.”
Andante felt himself responding even though he couldn’t move. “Don’t, Bryn, it’s too soon. I have to at least see about Harkon.”
He heard Brynjolf chuckle next to his ear. “Oh I won’t bite you, lad. Not tonight.” He brought both hands up to Andante’s chest and continued undoing his armor. “But I want to. Oh yes, I certainly want to.” He pushed the armor off Andante’s shoulders and began what had grown to seem a familiar exploration with his hands, and lips, and Andante moaned in spite of himself.
“Stop it, Bryn. Let me go.”
“No.” Brynjolf straightened, and then pushed Andante firmly down onto the bed. “You’re going to hear this because you need to hear this. We need to get this straightened out between us. It’s high time. I am still here, Andante, because there is nobody else like you. Because I feel alive, and before, I was ready to be dead. I’m here because,” he said, his hands teasing, slowly, leaving Andante gasping, “I cannot get enough of you, lad. You know that. But it’s not just that, before you tell me that I just want you for your body. Which is well worth wanting, by the way,” he said, grinning. “It’s not just that.”
He smiled again, this time a less greedy smile, a more affectionate one.
“No, you’re not Dynjyl. You look like him, that is true, but you aren’t him. He was… a boy.”
“He was a married man,” Andante managed to force out.
“Yes, and he was just a boy. So was I. We’d have grown apart if he had lived.”
Brynjolf stood for a moment, just long enough to slip himself out of the supple red leathers Andante had put him in not long before. Then he slid onto the bed next to Andante and continued touching, moving, tasting. It would have been lovely under any circumstances but the fact that Andante couldn’t move, couldn’t respond the way he would have liked, made it all the more tantalizing, almost agonizing.
“You are you,” Brynjolf murmured. “Whoever that is. You are definitely not a boy. And I,” he continued, leaning forward to brush a brief kiss across Andante’s lips, “want you. I am a greedy bastard. You’re my bad influence. Whatever it is we’re going to do next, Dimhollow Crypt or whatever comes afterward, I want to do it with you. I don’t know exactly what all of that means, but that is why I’m still here. I am here because I want to be. And I hope that is all right with you.”
Andante felt his arms releasing, and threw them up around Brynjolf’s shoulders to pull him in for a kiss of his own. Then, slowly, Brynjolf released the rest of him from the compulsion and he began returning the attentions he’d been given.
He has me. More for me, he told me the other night. More for me. This is what he meant by that. I will never be free.
It doesn’t matter why, as long as he’s here.
“Whatever you want, Brynjolf. Just tell me.”
___
Brynjolf looked down as he finished fastening his armor, grinned, and cleared his throat.
“So, as you were saying? Dimhollow something?”
Andante stretched and smiled. Damn, I don’t want to move right now. I feel too good to move.
“Yes. The Vigilants of Stendarr – or what is left of them – were looking into what they thought was an ancient vampire artifact that’s supposed to be there. I ran into a Vigilant named Tolan who is on his way there now.”
Brynjolf nodded at him, not quite containing a smirk.
“Don’t you think you should get dressed, lad? No matter where we go you might be a wee bit chilly like that.”
Andante chuckled.
“Stop ogling, Brynjolf.”
Brynjolf snorted.
“I don’t ogle. But what do you mean, ‘what’s left of them?’”
For a fraction of a moment Andante felt his head swim. I don’t ogle? The hair on his neck rose. He sat up and shook his head, hoping the strange sensation would go away.
“Well,” he said, pushing himself reluctantly to the edge of the bed. “It sounded to me as though the Hall has been destroyed. Tolan thought vampires burned it to the ground.”
Brynjolf raised an eyebrow. “Destroyed? Really? That would have taken some talent, to get in that close without being seen and then take all of them out. Then we’d best be looking out for the ones who remain. They’ll be out for blood.”
Andante snickered as he slid into his armor. “Nicely done. Your jokes are better when they are accidental, dear.”
Brynjolf snorted. “Good grief. It wasn’t a joke.”
“I know, I know. You’re right, though. And here’s what else I think. If there truly is some old artifact in that crypt that’s important enough for the Vigilants to be after it, you and I need to get to it before the Dawnguard does. The… legitimate Dawnguard, that is.”
Brynjolf nodded. “Agreed. It might be important to our survival. And I don’t know about you, but I intend to survive for a very long time. Let’s be off, then. I think we should take a carriage to Dawnstar and walk from there. It’ll save time. Make sure you pack enough food for yourself.”
Andante stared at him for a moment. I would have forgotten, too, if he hadn’t reminded me. Maybe he does care about me, after all. Then he remembered the pat on his back, and smiled. Yes, he really does.
“Thanks for the reminder. It wouldn’t do to have my stomach growl and give us away.”
He made for the door, to leave, and Brynjolf stopped him. He reached for Andante’s face and tipped his chin up, leaned forward, and kissed him, then dropped his hand and smiled.
“One for the road, shall we say?”
Andante laughed. “One for the road.”
They’d been underway for quite a good while when Andante started laughing to himself.
He managed to keep me away from the skooma.