bliss

Disclaimers: None of the characters in this fiction belong to me (worse luck!) and no profit is being made, either (oh, puxa!*)(*that's Russian for 'feathers'). This one's for you, V.

Domestic Bliss

By Molly Schneider

Nick slouched. Then he slumped. He tried leaning one elbow on the arm of the couch, tried resting his mouth against his knuckles, even tried lying down briefly--in short, he tried a thousand positions before giving up. He'd simply have to face himself and admit what he absolutely hated to admit...

He was jealous. Lonely, too. So jealous and lonely that it made him heartsick. Leaping from the couch in a burst of nervous energy he hightailed it to the kitchen where he opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of cow, giving it a amber-eyed glare before he guzzled the disgusting swill down. This was ridiculous; he may no longer want LaCroix out of his life, but to be jealous! All because he and Janette were having entirely too much fun with their little war of pranks. Too much fun--without him.

Feeling a little calmer after his meal, he took his leather jacket from its hanger and grabbed his keys off the table. He simply couldn't stay away from the Raven and its co-owners any longer.

*****

Whoosh!

Bang!

The strappy red satin evening shoe hit the wall just over LaCroix's head, missing him by mere inches. The old Roman sat unperturbed in his chair, like an old battle-scarred tomcat resigned to fate. Well, apparently unperturbed; Nick detected the faintest aura of consternation from his master. Around him lay nearly a dozen examples of expensive feminine footwear. Nick took one quick look at him and without a word ducked into the hallway, where Janette was returning from her bedroom with fresh ammunition.

Whoosh!

Thud!

An embroidered stiletto heel landed on the floor at LaCroix's feet.

"You missed," Nick told her.

"Oh, Nicolas, the point is not to actually hit the gentleman in question." She launched another missile.

"Oh?"

"The point--" she hissed through gritted teeth, "--is to let the *gentleman* know that one is displeased with him."

"I see. No, I don't."

"You don't know what he did!"

"He threw out your lipsticks. Then you had his booth rewired and broadcast polka music on his show."

"That's right."

"What did he do next?"

"Nothing!" she snarled.

"Oh. Doesn't that mean you won?"

"Don't be a fool, Nicolas. It means he's ignoring me!"

Nick was reminded of the reason for his visit. "You've both been ignoring me," he said glumly.

She cocked her dark head to one side and regarded him with sympathy. "Poor Nicolas! It's true, isn't it?

Ah--" she brightened. "We must remedy that! Wait here a moment." She disappeared into the bedroom and returned moments later with Alma in tow.

"You want me to what?" the voluptuous blonde asked.

Janette handed her a shoe. "Just as I said. At irregular intervals. And *don't* hit him, whatever you do. Nicolas, come with me. We have some shopping to do."

LaCroix had started to worry (just a little, he told himself) when he'd felt his daughter and son block his link to him. Was she truly angry, then? Well, at least the hail of shoes had stopped; he'd begun to be afraid that she was planning to keep it up all night. He'd just taken a deep draught from his glass when a bronze snakeskin sailed over his head. He sighed. Apparently she *was* going to keep it up all night...

*****

"What do you think, Nicolas?"

"I think," he said, averting his eyes, "that you're really embarrassing me."

She rolled her eyes dismissively and handed the item to the clerk. "One dozen of these, please. In purple."

"Purple?"

"The color of royalty," she explained to her brother with a smirk. "Now on to sporting goods."

"Janette, just how are you going to manage all this? He doesn't sleep that soundly."

"That's your part, darling. You're going to distract him."

"Oh." Nick said. He was beginning to wish he'd stayed home and nurtured his jealousy in his comfy loft. Brooded a little, maybe sulked.

*****

The phone rang. LaCroix was just reaching for it when it stopped--along with the shoes--and he heard a babble of increasingly excited French from his daughter's bedroom. "Nicolas...no. Nicolas, listen to me. This is not what you want; you can't do--Nicolas! Nicolas! Mon dieu!" A moment later she rushed into the living room.

"Janette, what is it?"

"Nicolas," she said frantically. "He said he couldn't bear it any longer, that he was giving up--LaCroix, I must go to him!"

"No. Stay here. I'll go."

"Non! He said he didn't want to see you or talk to you. If you go, you'll say the wrong thing and push him over the edge, I just know it!"

"Hush, now," he soothed, stroking her hair as she buried her face in his chest, shaking with sobs. "We've been through this before, Nicholas and I. He will survive, ma petite, I promise you. I will bring him to you."

"You promise me, LaCroix?"

"Yes, yes. Let me go now."

*****

The loft was dark and quiet; he knew already that he wouldn't find his son there--he could sense that--but with luck he could pick up his trail. He scanned the cavernous room with the instincts of a soldier and a hunter... there, on the table by the couch; what was that?

He crossed the room with swift strides and snatched up the single sheet of paper:

"LaCroix--

I knew you'd come looking for me. Don't bother. There is nothing you can do or say; I've made my decision. My final decision. Soon, I will find peace at last."

Snarling, he crumpled the note. Peace? I'll give you peace, you brat!

A little more digging, through answering machine messages and computer documents and his stash of 'secret' journals (LaCroix had discovered the false bricks over their hiding place years ago) and he was checking the clock against his inner sense of time. Yes, he could just about make it to the lonely cabin where his son was planning to do himself in.

What a pain in the ass.

*****

Two nights later one highly irritated antique vampire burst through the door into his private apartments followed by his wayward son.

"LaCroix, I never said I was going to kill myself! It's not my fault you and Janette misunderstood--"

"Your final decision? Peace at last? What were we supposed to think, Nicholas? Certainly not that you'd decided to join a Trappist monastery!"

"Benedictine," Nick corrected. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

LaCroix glared at him. It was one of his best glares, Nick thought admiringly, though not nearly as memorable as the expression on his face when he'd arrived hastily at the Schankes' cabin and learned that instead of getting ready to kill himself, Nick was only mentally preparing to enter monastic life.

He had to admit, he thought the way he'd let LaCroix talk him out of it was very well-played.

"Shut up, Nicholas. If you'll excuse me, I have a show to do."

*****

Lying side by side on the rooftop above their father's bedroom window, the two vampires shared a complicit grin as the howl of outrage rose into the night.

Below them, LaCroix rummaged one more time through his underwear drawer. Not one single pair of black silk boxers or even sensible cotton briefs. Thongs. Purple thongs. "I suppose I should be thankful they're not edible," he snarled sarcastically.

("Damn," whispered Janette, "I should have thought of that.")

Fine. He didn't need underwear. He strode to his closet, hesitated, then yanked the door open. For a moment it was all too much. He sat down on the bed, breathing hard.

Never mind. A toga was *not*, as contemporary college students seemed to think, shaped like a bedsheet, but a bedsheet would make a reasonable facsimile. One look in the linen closet at the Barney<tm> and Sesame Street<tm> characters killed that option, however.

He was a Roman. He was the product of one of the greatest civilizations in the history of man. He was a soldier. He gritted his teeth, thrust his nose in the air, and got dressed.

Then he slunk down the back stairs like a cat caught defecating in the potted palm...

*****

Safely inside the darkened booth he breathed a sigh of relief. Five minutes until on-air time... Luckily he was on radio, not television.

Without warning, blindingly bright light flooded the booth. Startled he looked up; the glare didn't prevent him from seeing the crowd clustered on the other side of the window, clapping and cheering at the sight of

LaCroix--

--Wearing a bright green plaid suit.

And bowling shoes.

Grinning from the front row were his children. Benedictine monastery, my eternal ass, he thought.

("What happened to his hair?" Nick asked. A pattern of fine lines cut through the normally elegant brush cut. "I soaked his comb and brush in hair remover," his sister replied smugly.)

FIN