so long, lonesome

…Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two…

Aldric’s head snapped up as Johann spat his words. His eyes narrowed, and he clenched his jaw. Johann had never spoken to him so viciously, and Aldric felt a twinge of anger begin inside him.

“[You don’t remember it correctly.]”

His voice was taut as he spoke, as though it were a wire pulled and ready to snap. He could not lose his patience, not when Johann was so fragile. The trauma of his death must have skewed his memory, and for this reason, Aldric tried to maintain his patience. The only way he could prove himself would be to show Johann his journals, but those were packed away in his home, and could not help him now.

…Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thir—

Aldric could almost see Johann’s pain magnify, grow so large that it could not be held inside him. Aldric looked down at the staples, and quickly counted out the rest of them even as Johann tried to stop his wrists. Their hands passed through each other’s, which made Aldric suck in a sharp breath. Here Johann was, and they would never touch.

“[Don’t say that—you never—you never meant little to me. Don’t. Don’t even think—]”

Aldric shook his head. It was no use. He knew what this looked like. It was compulsion only, a facet of his vampirism Johann had never witnessed in life. As soon as he finished counting, Aldric put them back in the stapler, put the staler back on the desk, and met Johann’s eyes.

He did not know what to say. He knew he ought to say something to assuage the look of pain, the obvious feelings of betrayal, and his tongue faltered. He did not know what Johann needed to hear. He did not know what Johann believed happened.

So he sat there, mute, and let Johann beat his fists against his chest. Aldric could not stop him, and he would not try. It did not hurt.

But his words—his words might as well have been daggers. They pierced him all the way through his heart; Johann’s memories were false, but the emotion behind them rang true. Aldric could scarcely understand what he was being asked, except for some explanation—but he did not know what he needed to explain that he had not already done.

“[Johann. Johann, listen to me. I never hated you. I have never. I cared deeply for you—surely you know I did. I tried so hard to save you. They had to pull me away from you. Maybe it is my fault you’re a ghost—maybe in trying to turn you… Maybe it worked just enough to keep your spirit but not your body. I don’t know. I was trying to save you, not punish you. I am sorry it didn’t work. I am. Please, Johann, I don’t—I don’t understand what you think happened.]”

Aldric’s breath hitched in his throat.

Johann remembered The Iliad.

It was the book Aldric had used to teach him to read. When Johann died, Aldric thought to bury it with him, but didn’t—and when the peasants stormed the manor, he thought to take it with him, but there wasn’t enough time. He imagined the manor was burned down now, and the library and all its memories with it. The ashes of their Iliad were long scattered to the wind, yet the words remained.

Johann’s laughter chastised him, but his words—his words caused Aldric’s eyes to widen in utter shock.

“[You think I killed you?]”

He began to shake his head, adamant. Locks of his blonde hair came lose from his low ponytail and framed his face.

“[I didn’t. I didn’t kill you, Johann. I could never.]”

He wouldn’t let Johann believe it. He wouldn’t let Johann say it. Aldric had never killed anyone in his life, least of all his former companion.

“[It was your heart. Your heart was weak, Johann. That night… You had something to tell me. And your heart stopped. I tried to save you, and that is all. Do you really think I could have? Was I so unfeeling toward you?]”

Aldric’s jaw clenched tighter. All this time, he comforted himself with the thought that Johann must have known, in his last moments, that he had tried to save him. And all along, Johann had thought the opposite.

“[Achilles said to Thetis: ‘My dear comrade Patroclus has fallen—he whom I valued more than all others, and loved as dearly as my own life.]’”

It was not the first time someone had called Aldric unknowable, but it was the first time he understood the damage of that word. Johann had known him so little that he thought Aldric might have killed him—despite his upright character, despite all the good things he had done and had given him, he still thought Aldric had it in him to murder.

Was that Aldric’s fault? Or Johann’s, for having so little faith?

“[I brought you into my home, I clothed and fed you, I provided a tutor, I favored you—and still you think I did not care about you.]”

Aldric resisted the wry laughter that wanted out of his chest. He pressed it down, as he pressed down everything. It would not do for both of them to laugh at the pitifulness of their suffering. Instead, Aldric rose from his knees to stand.

He could not bear to sit there on the floor and be called a killer. He could not bear to kneel with Johann so close to him. It was too similar to the day he died. He turned his back to him, with one hand on the nearby desk to keep himself steady.

“[Yes, angry. Angry with myself. Not with you.]”

He bowed his head.

“[You were dying before I bit you. I was trying to turn you, Johann, to save you, and it failed. I have lived with that failure.]”

He took his hand away from the desk. He did not need its support; he did not want to be seen as needing it.

He wanted to whirl around when Johann spoke of keeping The Iliad. Instead, Aldric moved slowly on his heel to turn, and looked down at the young man before him.

“[How could you have kept it? The farmers came with torches to burn down the manor. They threw stones through the windows. I had barely enough time to escape. I thought all this time the old house lay in ashes.]”

“[I suspected as much.]”

Suspected, but never knew for sure, the depth of Johann’s devotion. Even now, after Johann’s hysterics and weeping, Aldric was not sure of that depth—what of it was genuine, and what of it was the emotional response to trauma?

He knew now, at least, how often and how greatly Johann thought of him.

“[What would you have had me do? Tell you my every thought and feeling? You know as well as I that would not have been appropriate.]”

Still wasn’t appropriate, maybe. Aldric could feel a barrier inside him preventing him from saying too much, from being too candid about all he meant by I favored you. Now was a time for facts, for figuring out the truth of the timeline, for putting them both on the same page. It wasn’t the time for confessions.

While Johann pulled himself up, Aldric leaned down and began to pick up the detritus scattered about the floor. A mug had fallen and shattered; with his shoe, he pushed all the pieces into a pile. He would grab the broom and dust pan later, and replace the mug accordingly.

“[Someone other than a Reinhardt lives there? Terrible.]” His voice hardened. The estate had stayed in his family and belonged to no one else. But he’d had no children, and neither had his siblings, and he imagined the estate must have sat there for years, uninhabited and useless, until some brave soul decided to ignore its blackened history.

“[The estate was empty because not three days after you died the farmers and the villagers came for my life. I could not stay. I left, and all this time I thought I left you to your eternal peace.]”

He yanked a pen out of the wall.

“[If I had known you would come back, I would have left a letter.]”

The truth was that Aldric did not know what he should have done, either. He’d tortured himself for years over whether he ought to have offered Johann the bite, and never quite settled on a decision. And now, he did not know how what to do, or what to say; so much time had passed, and he had built a good life for himself, and now a ghost—quite literally, a ghost—came back and reminded him he was never sure of himself.

And it was a truth he couldn’t confess to. Not aloud, and never to Johann.

“[You don’t work for me any more, Johann. The old ways are done with.]”

He picked up the painting that had fallen. The frame was broken, but the artwork itself was still intact. He placed it in a chair to take care of later. H was not directly responsible for the damage, but he would replace it himself nonetheless.

“[It was improper then—not so much now. Neither of us are what we were. You needn’t ‘remove yourself’ unless that’s what you’d like. Don’t leave because you want to avoid this conversation.]”