He tried to relax, maybe sleep, but he was too excited.\u00a0 Thoughts were racing, hurtling through his head, tumbling end over end in no logical order as he tried to sort out all the new sensations in his body and the implications of what had just happened to his life.<\/p>\n
Well, I\u2019ve really done it this time. Gotten myself into something that I can\u2019t get out of.\u00a0 Died and come back with fangs. <\/em><\/p>\n I feel so different.<\/em><\/p>\n I can feel how strong Andante is and how weak I am in comparison. I\u2019m going to have to lean on the lad to teach me what I need to know about this. <\/em><\/p>\n A Nightlord. I knew what that meant, in theory, but now I can<\/em> feel what it means and I am in awe. He truly could take any of us down in a moment and yet he hasn\u2019t. He\u2019s just worked alongside us all.<\/em><\/p>\n But I can feed on him. I can feed on another vampire.\u00a0 He says that means I\u2019m also strong. I feel strong. Just not nearly as strong as he is. But I will be. If I\u2019m going to have to run the Guild I\u2019m going to take care of it and I will rip the throat out of anyone who ever tries to take us down ever again.<\/em><\/p>\n And I\u2019ll enjoy doing it.<\/em><\/p>\n He ran his tongue over his fangs.\u00a0 It had been exciting to feel Andante\u2019s fangs, when he kissed him, but to have fangs of his own was exciting in a whole different way.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t even come close to words for the sensation of pressing them down into Andante\u2019s flesh.<\/p>\n He tasted\u2026 good. <\/em><\/p>\n He let me do that, even though I didn\u2019t know what I was doing.\u00a0 He trusted me. I might have killed him by mistake but he just let me go ahead, insisted on it, and he tasted so good.<\/em><\/p>\n Amazing.\u00a0 I\u2019m ready to go hunting but I should let the lad sleep.<\/em><\/p>\n He rolled over and scooted a little closer to Andante\u2019s back. He smiled, and tried to stifle the urge to reach out a hand and start touching him again.<\/p>\n That was also amazing, that little interlude. The two of us go together very nicely. <\/em><\/p>\n He grinned to himself, thinking about it.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t quite seem to get enough of him. I\u2019m a wee bit surprised at myself. \u00a0I would have wagered that we would enjoy each other, after all, but I\u2019m still surprised at myself. He certainly doesn\u2019t seem to mind. <\/em><\/p>\n Brynjolf rolled onto his back and felt himself relaxing, just a bit, warming up just a bit.<\/p>\n Huh. I told him about Dynjyl but I never told Dag. I wonder why.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n Why would I have, after all.\u00a0 It was decades ago.\u00a0 Another lifetime.\u00a0 She was probably not much more than a child when I was with him. <\/em><\/p>\n Except that she did ask, in a roundabout way. <\/em><\/p>\n He remembered that moment as vividly as anything that had ever happened to him.\u00a0 He\u2019d been so shaken by what he had done just a few moments earlier as he tried to come to grips with what he\u2019d just learned about Mercer: slamming Dagnell into the wall, growling at her like an animal, then struggling to get a handle on himself and sneering at her idea that Mercer had been in love with Karliah.\u00a0 In spite of it she had swallowed her own anger and turned to him, saying the words that had felt like a knife to the heart.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>\u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever been truly in love, but if you haven\u2019t, you don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like when the person you want more than anything in the world is suddenly just gone, completely out of reach<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n But I do know. I was in love with a man married to a wealthy woman, and he died and I know exactly what it\u2019s like. I could have said that, right then, but I didn\u2019t. Maybe it was just the wrong time. <\/em><\/p>\n He turned his head to look at Andante again and grinned, picturing him with Dynny\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n I might actually have been after her as well as her necklace, pretty as she was, but for her damnably beautiful and completely irresistible husband. A bad influence, like Andante but worse because he was careless and impulsive and not nearly as good at the game as he thought he was. At least he taught me to be cautious, even if he didn\u2019t intend to.<\/em><\/p>\n He reached up and touched his face, the scar that marred it.\u00a0 He could still recall every split second of that first encounter, for time had slowed to a crawl while he\u2019d tried to puzzle out why the woman was shrieking at him and at Dynjyl and determine how big a problem he\u2019d gotten himself into. Then he had spotted the knife and the arm moving while the two of them tried to disentangle, move arms and legs, and stand to face her.\u00a0 He remembered the confusion of the pain erupting along the side of his face, reaching up only to have his hand come away covered in blood, and then grabbing his clothing and dashing for the door, casting a quick glance back at the beautiful cause of his predicament and seeing in his eyes an open invitation: come back to me, Brynjolf, come back when everything has died down and it\u2019s safe.<\/em>\u00a0 Wondering whether he was now too marred to warrant that invitation.<\/p>\n Not Dynny.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t care about the scar. He thought it made me look dangerous, the wonderful fool. I guess I was dangerous, at least to him.<\/em><\/p>\n He could remember every day with Dynjyl, from that first breathless moment when they had both realized their lives had changed forever, until the last second they\u2019d had together.\u00a0 Every adventure they\u2019d had, all the scrapes when one or the other of them had nearly met a bad end, then falling together at the end, giggling like two schoolboys and hoping that Dynjyl\u2019s wife didn\u2019t find out about what they\u2019d done.<\/p>\n He\u2019d have never made it in the Guild.\u00a0 Way too careless. Not a particle of caution in him, that one. And it didn\u2019t matter to me. It should have. Maybe he would still be alive if it had.<\/em><\/p>\n I wonder why the gods threw the two of us together like that. Was there something else we were supposed to have learned from each other, aside from \u201cbe careful?\u201d\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n He grimaced.<\/p>\n Maybe it was \u201cLearn how it feels to be in love, Brynjolf, learn it now while you have the chance so that you can torture yourself with the damned memory after it\u2019s taken away from you.\u201d The gods never have liked me very much. I guess I knew it wouldn\u2019t last forever, but I wasn\u2019t ever expecting it to end the way it did. <\/em><\/p>\n Still, I keep him with me, all these years later, the beautiful fool. And I always will.<\/em><\/p>\n And I keep her with me, too.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n He frowned up at the ceiling.<\/p>\n Damn it to Oblivion, Dag. <\/em><\/p>\n He closed his eyes and in spite of himself saw her as he\u2019d first seen her, walking around the outside of the stalls to Balimund\u2019s forge, carrying a big bundle of gear on her back, gear that he just knew she\u2019d stolen.\u00a0 He\u2019d kept his eyes on her while he kept up his spiel.<\/p>\n She laughed at me, the little minx. Walked into the marketplace and laughed at my Falmerblood Elixir. I heard that laugh and I should have realized it was all over right that very moment. At the very least I should have known I was done when she called me out in the inn that night, called me Red.\u00a0 That\u2019s when I should truly have realized I was lost, but I didn\u2019t.<\/em><\/p>\n Why else would I have watched her everywhere she went.\u00a0 She irritated me.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want her giving me sass about things and I didn\u2019t want to care about it when she did.<\/em><\/p>\n But that\u2019s exactly why she was perfect. <\/em><\/p>\n She had the potential to be his equal in every way.\u00a0 He had known that immediately, and had known it was important, because he was worried about the Guild and tired from trying to prop it up. Tough as nails, smart, a quick study, sarcastic and fearless, and she seemed to hold very little regard for his position. She treated him like just another man where the others held him slightly in awe because he was Second.<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t even seem to realize who I was in the scheme of things and didn\u2019t care much even after she did.\u00a0 I liked that. I wouldn\u2019t have admitted it but I really liked that. It was \u2026 tantalizing. I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about her and I was angry and irritated and I wanted more.\u00a0 Especially when I saw her in her Guild armor. Gods but she was beautiful. I wanted more but I wasn\u2019t about to let myself approach her. The Guild needed her.<\/em><\/p>\n It still does. <\/em><\/p>\n He\u2019d just watched. He\u2019d sent her on her way to do the Guild\u2019s business, because the Guild needed her.\u00a0 And when she returned it had stung to hear her call out for Roggi and had stung to see her huddled together with Thrynn.\u00a0 He\u2019d just watched, and moped, and tried not to be too obvious about it, even when she caught him staring at her across the Cistern.<\/p>\n I was so angry when I thought she had sided with Karliah against us, and then glad that she hadn\u2019t.\u00a0 Then I made that stupid mistake, grabbing her and pushing her up against the wall. I look back at it now and I know, even though I didn\u2019t know then. I didn\u2019t want to hurt her. I wanted her. It felt like the gods were laughing at me again.<\/em> \u201cLook at her, Brynjolf.\u00a0 Look at her every moment that you can and see what you\u2019ll never have. You thought she was gone but she\u2019s not; and you still can\u2019t have her.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Maybe that\u2019s why I didn\u2019t tell her about Dynny. She would have been able to tell what I was thinking. I couldn\u2019t have kept it out of my voice. I know I couldn\u2019t have.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s why. <\/em><\/p>\n Andante stirred in his sleep, sighed, and then began to snore lightly.\u00a0 Brynjolf looked at him and smiled, then closed his own eyes again, hoping that perhaps he could relax enough to sleep some as well.\u00a0 But his mind kept churning.<\/p>\n Maybe I was just too afraid of having a little bit of hope only to have it snatched away again. I guess I was right to be afraid of that.<\/em><\/p>\n He had watched her growing in strength, in skill, watched her becoming the leader he\u2019d imagined she could be. When they\u2019d found Mercer together and taken him down, and he had held her in Bronze Water Cave and heard her tell him he had beautiful eyes he\u2019d wanted her so badly that it hurt.<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t believe it when she came to me wearing the Amulet of Mara.\u00a0 Couldn\u2019t imagine that she actually wanted me too and acted like a complete idiot until she finally got it through my thick head. I know we loved each other. I know it. There\u2019s not ever been anything else like that in my life. Nothing at all. <\/em><\/p>\n Not even Dynny.<\/em><\/p>\n I know he would have gone back to his wife, eventually. I know it. He was basically a good man and he\u2019d made her a promise. He would have gone back. We\u2019d have gotten over each other, eventually. We would always have loved each other but it would have ended.<\/em><\/p>\n But I\u2019ll never really be over Dag.<\/em><\/p>\n I want her with me. I\u2019d try my best to bury the past if she just came back. They would call me a fool and I wouldn\u2019t care; I want her here, I want to be with her, I want to do everything there is to do in the world \u2013 with her. Gods how I want her back.<\/em><\/p>\n But she\u2019s not coming back and I have to find a way forward.<\/em><\/p>\n He sighed. He had thought it was getting easier. It really wasn\u2019t. His life seemed determined to punish him forever for a few moments of inattention when he was young.\u00a0 But now he had something to distract himself with, something he needed to do. He didn\u2019t have the luxury of putting it off in order to torture himself with regrets.\u00a0 He needed to learn how to be a vampire so that he could survive.<\/p>\n So now what?\u00a0 What do I do about Andante?<\/em><\/p>\n He turned his head and looked at the handsome man sleeping beside him, and smiled. Then he rolled toward him and touched his arm, started planting light kisses down his back. Andante stirred, chuckled, and rolled over, and smiled his mischievous smile.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m hungry, lad.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll right.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go hunting.\u201d\u00a0 Andante grinned. \u201cIf that\u2019s what you\u2019re hungry for, that is.\u201d<\/p>\n I learn from him.\u00a0 I enjoy him.\u00a0 I try to make him happy. We take what we want.<\/em><\/p>\n We will see.<\/em><\/p>\n Brynjolf pulled the blanket up closer around himself and tried not to shiver.\u00a0 After three days of fever, suddenly having the cool body temperature of a vampire made him feel even colder and it was a bit of a shock. Neither his Nord blood nor the constant heat of the forge in the next room … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/3-1-10-1.png\")
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