At the front of the bar, the next band was almost set up.
“Black Fang Candle?” Karim asked after squinting to read the name on the drum set. He turned to give Luis a look. “Is this a vamp band?”
“Maybe,” Luis said.
Karim looked at him, and Luis braced himself for whatever snarky comment was going to come next.
And then… it didn’t. He saw the moment that Karim’s eyes flickered down to Luis’s fidgeting hands on the table, then back up to his eyes, and then away. Then he closed his mouth and said nothing.
Luis felt disappointed. He moved his hands under the table where no one could see them.
“This is exciting,” Julien said, smiling as the band got into position on the stage. The smile grabbed at Luis, and trickles of pleasure dripped through him. It was a small thing, that smile, but he felt ridiculously pleased to have done it.
Then some lights flashed to cue the band, and Luis caught Karim watching him.
His cheeks burned. Did he look like he was mooning over Julien’s excited delight? He did his best to rearrange his features into something neutral.
Julien, oblivious, leaned over to Karim. “They’re so young,” he said, nodding his head to the band members. Luis looked, but the musicians on stage looked in their late twenties, not that young.
“Do you remember when we were that young?” Julien continued. His eyes were bright, practically glowing. Luis didn’t know what it was about tonight, but Julien looked somehow younger. Refreshed. “Do you rememberTangier?”
Karim shifted in his seat. “I remember,” he said softly. No bristle or joke.
Luis leaned in to hear better. “Tangier?” He asked.
Julien licked his lips, his eyes landing on Luis like a weight. Suddenly, Luis couldn’t breathe.
“That was where we met. We were both in the wild years after our Change,” Julien explained with a secretive smile.
The Change was what everyone called the transition from human to vampire. A difficult, complicated process according to the rumors Luis had heard. He’d never looked it up to actually see what it entailed.
“Oh?” Luis asked. His mouth was dry.
“Mhm, we…” Julien’s eyes trailed back to the band. “New vampires seek all sorts of thrills with their new lives. You get new senses, new feelings, new ways of thinking. You have to findsomething to pour those into, or it can get… difficult. It’s why new vampires these days have to have a guardian.”
Karim made a sound and shifted again in his seat. “It’s not a lifestyle for everyone.”
“Starting a band is an interesting idea though,” Julien said, nodding to the front. “Less messy.”
“Less fun,” Karim groused. “How’re you supposed to burn down a convent and start a cult with a band?”
“To be clear,” Julien said, trying to repress a smile and failing, “the convent was holding those women against their will, burning it down was a public service.”
“It was justice,” Karim said with heat. The way he said it threw Luis back into the memory of last Friday, to Karim’s fury as he took care of Eric.
“I see,” Luis said, even if he very much didn’t. “Justice.”
Karim grunted. “Sometimes shitty people need consequences.”
“Karim has a very strong sense of justice,” Julien explained.
Yeah, Luis was coming to understand that.
Julien reached for Karim’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ve always loved that about you,” Julien said earnestly to Karim. “I know I nip at you about your impulsiveness, but I do appreciate your candor and the tenacious way you go about the right thing. I can be too slow, too cautious sometimes to do the action required when it’s required. You balance me out.”
Karim looked caught off guard by the compliment. His usual unimpressed, stony expression cracked open to something softer. His brows furrowed to tenderness in a way that Luis couldn’t look away from.
“Yeah, well,” Karim said, clearing his throat, looking away, “somebody has to act before you get a pitchfork to the chest for rescuing a child from a river.”
