Fine Irony by Ash Kennedy Walking slowly, softly, for his feet were a mass of raw, exposed, muscles in the process of regeneration, Deacon Frost managed to make his way over the threshold of his Edgewood Towers rooftop Penthouse. Inside he stopped to lean on his black leather couch, his chest heaving beneath the tattered remains of his collared shirt with breaths he didn't need to take but did so out of habit. Blade, the Daywalker and his nemesis for many years, had finally beaten him; pumped him full of some biochemical weapon he'd created and caused his body to explode in a rain of flesh and blood. But before the Daywalker and he had had their final showdown, Frost had performed the ritual of the Blood Tide and in doing so had been possessed by the spirit of the Blood God, La Magra. Blade hadn't the slightest idea what this meant and so he had thought he had triumphed. He couldn't have been farther from the truth. Five days in the Temple of the Night Frost had laid recuperating, his veins screaming for blood, his remains scattered in every conceivable direction. He remembered the moment when tissue and bone and flesh had merged and he had become aware that he was still alive; when the crumbling ivory walls of the Temple had come first as blurry patches of light and darkness that swooped and danced across his vision and then had finally solidified. He had been able to see every last detail of his surroundings as he'd never seen them in all the years he'd been a blood drinker. Every last crack in the floor seemed like a chasm that ached to swallow him whole, ever speck of dirt a unique composition of fibers and earth, ever insect a bloodthirsty beast with slavering mandibles. It had almost been frightening. But at the same time he had felt invigorated, brimming over with power, and when he had finally accumulated the strength to rise once more he'd known nothing that walked the earth would be able to defeat him ever again. "Ah, Frost, good to see you survived. I was beginning to have my doubts." Frost jerked his head around at the sound of the voice. Even with his newly acquired hypersensitive vision he hadn't seen anybody in the apartment when he'd first came in. But upon another, more thorough search the outline of a figure half submerged beneath the surface of his indoor pool came into focus. Frost recognized his old companion and occasional lover instantly but with his greatly enhanced senses it was if he was seeing him for the first time. Seemingly bottomless black eyes that pulsated with strange light stared back at him, set in a chiseled, alabaster face and framed by hair the color of raven's wings. "Salvatore," he acknowledged. His nose crinkled as he bared his fangs in a smirk. "Always the fucking last one standing." Damon leaned back against the pool rim and fixed his gaze on the metal wall panel across from him, its purpose to keep the daylight from penetrating the dark regions of the apartment. "Of course. I've survived for over five centuries, haven't I? " Frost didn't reply, only made a noise in his throat that was somewhere between amusement and contempt and dragged himself over to the wall panel. Agony snaked through his body with each step. Infused with the essence of The Blood God he could both heal any wound and regenerate severed body parts instantly, but the effect of Blade's serum had done something to slow down the process. As a result walking made the healing pain immense and though he tried not to let it show it was evident in the stiff contours of his muscles and the way he kept his jaw clenched. "You look like shit," Damon remarked. Frost reached the panel and pressed a button that was set into one of its many ridges. With a mechanical noise that was reminiscent of an electronic garage door, it rolled back to reveal a horizon that was pitted with the glowing outlines of skyscrapers. At the far end of the pool a waterfall rushed and gurgled down to a second tier and then cascaded over what appeared to be the edge of the building. "But I feel fucking great," Deacon replied. He regarded a bloodstained shirtsleeve with a frown and tore the entire garment off of him as if it were tissue paper. "It's like I've become part of this...higher form of life. A fucking new breed of vampire; an evolved breed. Nothing even you've encountered before." Behind the skyscrapers the sun was setting in a display of fiery oranges and yellows. Frost spread his arms out towards it and let the rays that would have once set him aflame beat against his skin. The laugh that erupted from his throat was purely malicious. "I am the revolution and the time for the vampire race's ascension has begun. The humans will be worshipping us as gods like they should have been doing all these centuries. It will be a vampire apocalypse. And all those goddam people tucked safely in their homes out there, every single last one them, they don't have a fucking clue what's about to happen." Frost stepped into the pool, the blood from his wounded feet turning the water crimson. He waded over to where Damon was lounging and grabbed him by the shoulders. "For the Blood God has awakened and he will lead us into the land of eternal night." Now that Damon was this close to Frost he could see that the other vampire's eyes, even the whites of them, shone the deep, dull color of fresh blood. "La Magra," he whispered and flashed one of his unique grins. "I never thought you'd be able to pull it off." "Nobody fucking did. That's the beauty of it. The House of Erebus didn't deem me capable of cracking a puzzle even they couldn't figure out. I fucking did though, didn't I? And look where they are now. Fucking dead." He leaned closer to the elder vampire until they're lips were almost touching. "No faith, Salvatore. It's always been what's held our kind back. But things are about to change. The twelve tribes will look to me as their god and no longer bare their necks to humanity like heifers to the fucking slaughter." Damon was rigid in Frost's grasp, and as he stared into those positively demonic eyes that sloshed and swirled as if they actually were filled with blood, something dark passed over his features. It was gone instantly, but Frost caught it anyway. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a rictus. "It's a fucking turn on for you, the idea of having that much power." Swift as a shark that had caught the scent of blood in the water Frost's hand plunged beneath the waistband of Damon's swim trunks. "I bet it makes you hard just thinking about it." A groan erupted from Damon's throat, conceived by the fingers that grasped and stroked at him. Deacon's lips against his muffled it, and what would have been silence was filled with the soft wet merging of their tongues and the gentle slosh of the water against their skin. Damon was the first to break contact and he tilted his head back, regarding Frost with a look in his eyes that was unreadable. "What about Blade?" "The Daywalker? Fuck him. He's insignificant now. Let him think that he finally had his revenge on me." Frost moved so that his mouth was resting on Damon's neck, his fangs grazing the skin there. Damon shivered. "He'll be back once he figures out you're alive. He'll want to finish things." "We'll deal with him." "We'll?" "Mercury and Quinn got themselves offed. You're all that's left." "You forget where I stand, Frost. I never allied with you like they did nor will I ever. I am no one's subordinate." "I know that." Deacon's mouth found Damon's nipple and he bit down hard enough to elicit a growl from him. "And it ain't what I meant." "What, then, are you trying to say?" "I'm saying you and I can be in this together. I can give you the power to rule alongside La Magra. The power to take whatever the fuck you want whenever the fuck you want to." "I already have that power." "You think you do. But you haven't drunk from a god's veins, Salvatore. You haven't tasted true freedom." Frost looked up at the elder vampire and tilted his head so that his throat was exposed, vulnerable to attack. "Go ahead. Have a sip." Damon's eyes could have bore holes through Frost's neck so intense was his gaze. There wasn't a throbbing pulse there to hold him enthralled; Frost was a different breed of vampire then he was and didn't have one. But just the thought of the blood beneath the skin, its taste, the sensation of it coating his tongue and his throat.... Frost's body jerked in his grasp as Damon's fangs penetrated the flesh offered to him. His mouth flooded with the irony flavor that he'd imagined only it was spiked with something stronger, something primordial. As if it was blood that had been pilfered from the first physical manifestation of vampirism. Even as the thought crossed his mind he knew it was the truth. The blood that he was gorging on was the very blood that had birthed the vampire races. Frost's breath was coming out in pants, his hands grasping Damon's dark head with enough force that if Damon had been human his skull would have cracked under the pressure. Damon sucked harder at Frost's throat, his hands wandering the length of his body, until Frost was so giddy from the blood loss that he could no longer sustain his own weight. He sagged to his knees, dragging the elder vampire down in the water with him. But only when Frost's hands flopped uselessly to his sides, when his head lolled on his neck as if he were dead, when he let out a low moan that was halfway between pain and ecstasy, did Damon disengage himself. He tore away with the sound of tearing flesh and tilted his head up towards the ceiling of the apartment, blood trickling down his face and neck like macabre makeup as he felt the power of the ancient blood inside him unfurl. It was changing him as it coursed through his veins; Calling for things that lay dormant inside of him to awaken. There was silence for a minute as his muscles spasmed with the force of the transformation, and then another, and yet another. And then came the soft, hoarse sound of Deacon Frost laughing. "Salvatore." Another burst of laughter erupted from him and water splashed as he inched his way forward. Pressed up close to Damon, his mouth against his ear, he rasped, "Salvatore...you've drank the blood and taken the power I've offered you as La Magra. You've worshipped me. You're mine now." "No, Deacon." Damon was the one to laugh this time, and his voice rang loud and hollow as it echoed off the walls. When he tilted his head to meet Frost's gaze, his eyes were no longer black but the deep, dark color of fresh blood. "Now we're equals." --End--