Links of Love by J. Dax

Links of Love

By: J. Dax

CATEGORY: Alternate Universe, Angst

WARNINGS: Vampires

The link between vampires is eternal.

Those of us born as such wicked creatures of the moon hear and know memories that are not our own. Our minds take us on journeys we never took, but that had been projected by the generation before us.

Those who crossover into our realm, having once been mortal and not knowing the lonely visages of painful passion, cold and without any heat, but simply lust...take comfort in these flashes of contact.

One mind merges with another and you are distracted from the loneliness that you are now destined for.

Oh destiny...another friend that is another enemy.

The fates befall us with the balance to life. If we did not exist, neither would they...the mortals that purge such mythologies as we seem to be far from their unimaginative minds.

Only children now, are afraid of the dark. Only they truly understand what lurks there.

Some children seek us, begging us for our companionship.

Those are the children that become marked later in life as adults.

I see it now, very vividly.

A young Jonathan "Jack" O'Neill, bravest and wisest six-year-old in Minnesota throws back his covers on a frosted night when the moon is full and so are the green eyes of Horus Dracula, a direct descendent of the line of Vlad Dracula (who was not the first of us, but certainly the most deadly).

He descends upon the window sill and stares into the eyes of the young O'Neill who simply stares back, arms crossed over his little body with a nonchalance that made Horus chuckle.

I wanted to reach out to him, tell him it wasn't a good idea to challenge this particular obstacle of fear.

But memories, no matter how contingent on time, will never let you go back to change them; especially if they are not your own.

And it would have been no use, for Jack was as stubborn and willful then as he is now, refusing to listen to me against all reason just so he can make his own mistakes, as all good leaders wish to do so that responsibility is upon them and those in their charge.

"Stop being around me" Jack demanded the intimidation figure, "I don't like the dark"

"Oh you may deny it all you wish, young man" Horus replied, "But in the end it is you who keeps summoning me to your side, I do not come of my own volition"

Jack shakes his head hard, making the bowl-cut mop of blond hair around his head fly out slightly to the sides.

I couldn't help but think how adorable a child he had been: standing there in his pajama pants and an old, oversized, t-shirt of his dads that nearly swallowed him up, facing off against the bad guy even at that age without a flinch of fear. His brown eyes and small demeanor holding a capacity of such ferocious fight within them that it was a wonder one person could contain it all.

Horus just sat there, crouched at his window, and watched him be consumed by his own inner fire.

"Yes..." he drawled out, "You will make a good companion to whomever marks you. But you will cause him more pain from your denial then he has ever caused you."

And with that he flew off into the sky, instantly his figure melding into the darkness. A landscape of shadow so black that not even the sun would ever be able to illuminate it.

* * * *

I nuzzled my face in between Cameron's broad shoulder blades, admiring in my half-wakefulness his muscular back.

"Good morning" he yawned out, rolling over so he could see me.

"Morning", I whispered back, locking my gaze with his as we settled into a new position with my head in the crook of his arm.

"I think I'm there" he said with an almost timid tone to his voice that in no way complimented his normally confident southern drawl.

I needn't ask what he was talking about...all I had to do was respond.

One night of real love making, not a feeding, just us and sex with no other premise than the fact that we were falling in love, and the intimacy was sweet; but the memories were cruel.

This part, I knew, was inevitable with any marked one. They always must bond to you on some deeper level than the physical. It is the only way they can chase off the fear of darkness.

And love, with all the complexities that people in relation to one another can affect upon it, was still easier for mortals than us.

We hurt deeper, we grieve longer, we pine endlessly.

For our loneliness is so absolute that it is not eased unless we take a human lover, someone who gives their body as well as their soul, and is willing to be with us in the abyss of our limbo.

I've had three prominent loves in my lifetime: Jack O'Neill, Skaara, and Shar'uri.

To have another was overkill on my emotions.

Shredded like black lace under the sharp nails of a jaguar that roams in so many minds. The subconscious force of which would kill a mortal with the very thoughts they think but never realize unto themselves.

This is my heart that has never beat and never will.

"I wish I could say I love you" I whispered, "But those words have lost their meaning to me" I reached out my hand and cupped his face, "Would it be enough to say I hunger for you? To say that I yearn for us never to part?... or perhaps if you let me show you?"

Cameron was shaking slightly with the impact of my voice.

Every vampire has a voice that can lure the hormones of mortals into tangles of actual physical feeling, so that when we speak to them, they not only hear us but feel us inside them...as if we are speaking from within their souls.

His eyes glistened with cerulean dapples of vulnerability, "Take me" he said softly, "Make me yours forever"

* * * *

"You two are here late"

"We uh..."

"Traffic"

"Right, yeah, um...traffic"

"What's with those marks on your neck Cameron? Looks like somebody got a little action last night"

"You could say that, Sam"

"I believe we should proceed with the briefing"

"You read my mind, Teal'c...Mitchell, we'll discuss your tardiness later"

"Yes sir"

"Ahem: I told you to wear your collar up"