Glamour #2

Hello! I was thinking about "Glamour" recently and wondered if you would continue it? I have so many questions about the vampire's estranged (???) love - would love to see what happens when the human look-alike is sent to her - or when she sends the vampire one of her look-alikes of them. 

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Previous parts here 

On one of their final nights at the cottage there was a knock at the door. There had never been a knock at the door in the time that the two of them had been there, and the human froze.

It occurred that they could scream for help like a distant, silly, whim. There was no being free of the vampire. Their vampire. Why would they even want to be? Life without them was a grey, shallow imitation.

The vampire inhaled deeply, eyes going bright with interest. A wicked grin that the human had never seen before spread across their lips. They pushed the human out of their lap, by the door in a flash, opening it to let another human stumble in.

The man at the door was beautiful; all ink dark hair and a physique carved out of pale marble. In other words, in first glance, he looked startlingly like the human’s vampire lover.

Except, the human’s eyes were a light bloodshot blue, desperate, with shadows smeared beneath them. The human’s muscles were hunched with the kind of pain that the protagonist recognised from getting too far away from their vampire that one time. Unlike the vampire, the human’s dark hair was greasy and tangled, like he’d come a long way on single-minded mission.

The vampire cupped his not-quite doppleganger by the chin, steadying, taking a moment to examine them.

The protagonist held their breath.

The other human stared at the vampire, wide-eyed and shocked, like they hadn’t expected the resemblance.

“You must be Paul,” the vampire said. “I believe you have a letter for me, yes?”

“I-yes.”  Paul fumbled in the pocket of his leather jacket – he even dressed like the vampire did, though the protagonist didn’t know how much of that was by choice.

The vampire let go of Paul to snatch the letter greedily and shut the door to the cabin behind them both with a soft click. Paul’s gaze darted it to in a way that reminded the protagonist of themselves; always waiting watching for the mercurial whims of their vampires’ to pull the earth from beneath their feet. Paul’s eyes darted to the letter next, fingers curling like he wanted to grab it back.

The human wondered if Paul knew he was there to die. Something twisted in their chest. It was strangely easier to reconcile with the thought of their own death, wrapped and smothered as it was in glamour and the unshakeable mine mine mine desire to please. It was different looking at another human and knowing that he had suffered the same or similar fate. It still made something human, something furious, flicker in the protagonist’s chest.

Paul caught sight of them, and whatever colour had been on his face, drained completely.

“Celeste,” he rasped. He took half a step towards the human, that desperate almost hunger flaring in his eyes, before he stopped like he’d been struck. He looked at the protagonist again, and his shoulders slumped, crushed, by the realisation that of course, of course, he wasn’t looking at the vampire he had left behind. He wasn’t looking at anyone who could ease the burning need in his chest. Whatever similarities there were, the protagonist was only mortal and another thousand other things different to this Celeste.

The protagonist still clutched the name of the other vampire, their double, close. Like a weapon or cursed object, bound unable to let it go.

Paul’s knees buckled, and the vampire caught hold of him idly again before he hit the ground, towing him over to the sofa next to the protagonist, and shoving the other human down. The vampire’s attention was still rapt upon the letter, mouth moving soundlessly around the words.

The protagonist wanted to ask what it said, with an absurd and helpless twist of jealousy, but the vampire would tell them whatever they needed to know.

“Easy now,” then vampire murmured to their double. “It hurts, doesn’t it, to be without her?”

“Yes.” Paul looked dazed. “Please. I want to go home.”

“Then maybe,” the villain’s voice was soft, gentle, “you should not have broken. Sweet thing. I would never have done that.”

The protagonist sucked in a sharp, pained breath.

The vampire seemed to remember they were there, glancing up at them. They had a dark heat in their eyes that the protagonist hadn’t seen in a while, of the kind that had so convinced them of love when the two of them first met, and their gazes locked across a crowded bar.

The vampire took two slow steps towards them, dragging the protagonist up into a searing kiss, as if kissing the protagonist might reach across time and space to find the lips of Celeste. The protagonist drowned in the kiss, pleasure and breathlessness, as the vampire forgot in their careless passions that humans needed air. They only released the human to sag, dizzy and dazed, against the sofa cushions when they were no longer able to respond to the kiss at all, to do anything other than be had. Even then, their lips simply switched to the protagonist’s throat as they loomed over them, crowding them in.

“She said,” Paul sounded lost, “that you would help me find my way home. After I delivered her message. That it would make her so happy that I did, and then when we saw each other again-“

The vampire’s attention turned to him, eyes already the glowing bloody red of a glamour waiting to happen.

“Oh, but darling,” the vampire said, pressing a much more tender kiss to Paul’s mouth. “You’re mine until you die.”

Paul stiffened, even as he repeated the words back, never even thinking to have a defence up.

The vampire sat down on the sofa, pulling the new human into their lap, stroking their hair with a care that the protagonist had never seen.

“Tell me how she’s been,” the vampire said. “What she told you about me. Tell me everything.”

The protagonist reached for the letter, still held in one of the vampire’s hands, and the vampire didn’t even stop them from tugging it free. Their attention was on their new gift.

I made this one like how I remember you, when we first met. He is as close to death as you were my dearest. I think you’ll like him. His name is Paul.

Thinking of you, always.

C.