"I know Finn will kill me for making this last minute change," Alex said in the Solar, typing quickly on his laptop, adjusting a few things, "Yeah, I'm sure it'll sound better if Frank sings this... Okay. I'll try my best whiny voice and breathe as little as possible," Alex drank some water from the glass next to him, cleared his throat and took a deep breath. "Frank Voice Attempt in three, two, one... It's been so long since we last spoke and now you're at my door! You came from outer space to ask me for a chance at love!" Then he paused, shaking his head, "No, Frank already has too many parts and... Oh shit! Finn has nothing to sing! I always forget about Finn! Well, well, let's see... The bridge of the song might suit Finn better than Frank I guess. I'll try my best screeching voice and exaggerate with the vibrato as much as I can. Finn Voice Attempt in three, two, one... Oohh! Where were you? Underground? Like Area 51? You kiss and tell! You hit and run! Babe. Ge-e-et! On your spaceship, take off! You really FUCKED THINGS UP! GET OFF MY PLANET! DAMN OUTSIDEEEEER! YEeEeah... Argh... Oh shit..." Alex coughed miserably, holding his neck, "Fuck, Finn! How the hell have you not fucked up your throat singing the way you do?!"
"You're almost a parrot," Draco laughed with his eyes on the track list, "You're good at imitating voices, you actually sounded like Finn... With laryngitis."
"Thanks?" Alex laughed, "You should hear my Patrick Star impression."
"You'd make a great pair with Finn. He can imitate SpongeBob, and Sandy, and Mr. Krabs, and Plankton, and Squidward, and even Gary."
"I think Finn is more of a parrot than I am," Alex said and Draco nodded.
"Yeah, but he can't imitate anyone's voice in the group and you can," Draco said without looking at his face, "I heard you imitating me the other day, and Zeth and Everett, and just now Frank. You're good at that."
"Yeah but I don't like doing that much, not in public," Alex laughed, checking the lyrics on his sheet, "Okay, second try with Finn's vocals in three, two, one... Oohh! Where were you? Underground? Like Area 51? You kiss and tell! You hit and..."
"Call Miguel, it's hard to stick it on Miguel." Draco sang, swinging his legs in his chair as he finished reviewing the track list for tonight's concert. Alex frowned, watching this sweet little Animaniac move his head from side to side. Why did he always have to interrupt like that? No idea, but Alex couldn't get enough of seeing this scarlet-haired cutie singing with all the joy available on the planet, "She took away the phone saying Wah-ah-ah! So we can hear our nose sing La-La-La! You're so mean... To tell the melody! So come on!" Draco threw his fist in the air, and after taking a long breath, he began to sing at the top of his lungs. "Dance on me balls! Cat fucking a handbag! Yours only yours, adore the single dance band. It's no lie, Lisa in the crowd said: Look! Harry had a vagina malfunction!"
"The hell are you singing?" Alex asked, looking strangely at Draco from across the table.
"Caramelldansen," Draco said with a dismissive hand, raising the tracklist like a holy grail, "Perfect!"
"Caramelldansen?" Alex chuckled, "It sounds like Willy Wonka got high on sugar."
"It's an old song, I don't think you know which one it is." Draco replied, lowering the page, looking at it doubtfully, "I think all of our hits are on the list, and I didn't put 'Black Cat' on it because I know you hate that song."
"Well thank you! And that Caramelldansen song? It sounds familiar. Have you sung it before?" Alex asked, frowning.
Draco shrugged.
"Maybe, I dunno. But it's really good, and the dancing is a lot of fun, very energic and terrible for your hips and masculinity!" He paused for a moment to count the songs again and nodded, "You know? We should sing it sometime. I bet we would really rock it! We can switch a song we don't like for that one and dance like anime girls on stage! Oh. Oh! I've always wanted to wear a schoolgirl skirt. I remember when we went to Scotland and I wore my skirt without underwear," Draco laughed a little, "Frank almost had a heart attack and Everett jumped into Loch Ness when I fell face first. And then you scolded me."
"Hey, nobody wanted to see your bell clapper," The corners of Alex's mouth twitched up slightly, "But now I need silence, understood?"
"No more Caramelldansen, got it," Draco snapped his fingers.
"Caramelldansen." Alex opened a tab on the computer and searched for the song, immediately frowning. "Draco?"
"What?" he blinked rapidly, cutely. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"The song isn't in English, it's in Swedish," Alex laughed, "Oh my fucking God! That's hilarious! Cat fucking a handbag! That was priceless!" he even clapped while laughing, "Oh God, I'm sorry, it's just... Sorry."
"Hey, everything is ready now. We should send Finn the track list and the correction of the correction of 'Alien Crap' and voila!" Draco frowned. "I can't believe you thought of making last minute changes when we already had everything ready."
"Sorry," Alex grinned and turned his gaze back to his laptop screen.
And then the door of the Solar opened.
"Do you guys need help with anything?" Paul stepped in with a big smile on his face, and if this were a sitcom, Alex was sure there would be cheers from the audience and applause. Alex didn't look up as Paul approached though. He kept his focus on his computer screen. "Hey Draco, Alex, we need to talk," Paul said, sitting on the edge of the table.
"Sure," Alex nodded, "About what?"
"About: Communication on this team is terrible." Paul said.
"Terrible for the sake of the plot?" Draco asked.
"Terrible for fucks sake actually," Paul replied, "Evie has believed all this time that you are interested in Jade and not her." Paul turned to look at Alex, who was already blinking rapidly, "I hope you know that I've grown to quite enjoy your company these past few days. You've all been kind and friendly, and I admire you immensely for that. And before you fire me for telling you this, I think now that Frank and Evie are about to be a couple, I don't know... Your relationship will be poly, right?"
"Yes." Alex said, quick and simple.
"And I hope I don't offend either of you, but I would like to be part of that." Paul continued talking, "I'm sorry to say this but..."
"But?" Alex growled.
"Wait, Paul! Don't tell me you're in love!" Draco held Paul's wrist tightly, looking him straight in the eyes, "You're in love with Alex too, right? I knew it! I always knew it!"
"I didn't say that, I'm straight actually," Paul said, looking away, "I just thought that maybe I could..."
"You fell in love with Evie," Alex said with a grumble and Paul nodded.
"I felt like I met someone who already knew me." Said Paul, "She was very understanding and very humane with me and my mum. I couldn't help but fall in love."
"Evie's a sweet girl under that mask," Draco said, "She didn't judge me for my past when I first met her either. In fact, your story, your life... We're not that different, you know, Paul?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Alex frowned, "You are nothing like Paul!"
"You're wrong," Draco replied, looking down, "I swore I'd never talk about this again but... After the funeral of King Viktor Rubinstein at the Holy Pyramid of Ozyrez, the entire court went to the Great Pyramid for my sister's coronation as the new Queen of Evalon. My sister praised my father for the assassination of House Collem and swore to do the same to whoever opposed her rule. My father was a madman, a deranged murderer, who enjoyed torturing people mentally and psychologically. He did horrible things like cutting out people's tongues and dicks off. He was... Awful!"
"Oh shit! That sounds horrible!" Paul gasped, holding his crotch in fear, and Draco nodded, "Sorry for what I'm going to say but, what kind of a man does that?!"
"He was a murdering asshole," Draco made a disgusted face, "But back to the story... During the feast, I was my sister's cupbearer, so I saw first hand how a sacred wood arrow crossed the air and was caught by my father before it killed Batrix. Marquess Damon Hellfire rose among the people with a spear of sacred wood, and my father ordered Zer Gorevan Strongblood to eliminate him... You don't want details but Damon died a horrible death in front of all the guests."
"What kind of horrible world do you come from?" Paul gasped, his face genuinely terrified.
"And why are you telling us that, Draco?" Alex raised an eyebrow.
"Because that night, I met with a woman I had fallen in love with, Zuria Cubbus. My father found us, in the Solar of the Great Adviser Tower, not my smartest move," Draco took a long breath, and his face became gloomy, his eyes glassy, "I didn't want her to be tortured and die the way my first love... Jesus! Ãmi pare rÄu... I am still a bit... Sad." Draco wiped away a tear.
"Take your time," Paul said, "You know we're here for you, and if you need a hug, just say so."
"I'm okay. But I wasn't back then. I was terrified!" Draco now looked paler than usual, his hands turned cold and trembled, "My father would surely do atrocities to Zuria and force me to watch again, so I defended her, with everything I had. I remorsefully confronted my father, It was difficult to fight him because he was a giant, bigger than Everett, but I was very agile. He landed a couple of hits, I'm not going to deny it. He repeatedly dismissed my feelings while he punched and kicked me around. The Solar ended upside down, furniture broke, and with one blow I crossed a wall and fell into my father's bedchamber."
"Bro, you don't have to tell us this," Alex said, looking at Draco's hand on the table, unsure whether he should hold it or not, so he refrained, "You don't have to relive those horrible memories."
"Alex is right," Paul nodded, "Draco, we don't want you to feel bad."
"It's just that, I don't feel bad," Draco looked up at Paul with tear-filled eyes, but there was a smile that looked almost sinister, "I saw the spear my father had taken from Marquess Hellfire in a corner of the room, and he saw it too. It was do or die, so I jumped on the bed, took the spear and... Poof!" Draco wiped away a tear and laughed afterwards, "Oh yeah, how's that, you asshole? The dwarf fought back! How about that? I defeated the most dangerous man in all of Evalon! Proud now, daddy?"
"Draco... Did you...." Paul swallowed thickly, looking at Alex with absolute terror in his eyes. Alex looked just as surprised.
"Yeah, Dimitri Von Stroker died by the hand of the one he least expected: His dwarf son." Draco laughed again, but the tears didn't stop, "I did it in the name of all his victims, but more so in the name of all the pain he had caused me. Years of abuse, of being belittled, of being the defective son, the dwarf vampire and family shame ended in a burst of fire and ash."
"Draco. I... Wow. That's awful." Alex's eyes were wide, turning to look at Paul, who was putting his hand on Draco's shoulder to comfort him, but Draco didn't look sad... He was laughing maniacally.
"It wasn't as glorious as I thought it would be. I hoped to make him suffer like he made suffer all the people I loved and forced me to watch chained to the wall, but no. One second, Dimitri was there and the next, it was all over. I couldn't even tell him everything I wanted to tell him." Draco pulled strands of his hair, "I put an end to the smartest and cruellest man in the history of Evalon, some called him the true power of the Nine Kingdoms, my brother and sister called him father... I called him a bastard! Oh but that wasn't the worst part! No! My damn sister then entered the Solar and ordered my arrest. My brother arrived and Batrix begged him to kill me with the same spear I used to end our father, but Bloodimir refused..." Draco wiped away his tears with his forearm and sighed, his eyelids were red, and his hands were still shaking, "God! I'm a horrible person! Maybe I'm looking for excuses for what I did. The abuse I suffered was just a pretext. Maybe I have murderous blood just like my sister and my father." He looked at his own hands with great terror, "Maybe I'm cruel too, maybe I'm too much of a Von Stroker."
"You're not like them, I don't think so," Paul said, trying to ease the tension, "You say your father was cruel? A murderer? Well, what would have happened if you didn't do it? He would have finished you off. You defended yourself, and Zuria, that doesn't make you a horrible person."
"I've been told, Zeth helped me a lot to get over the whole thing after the Zeldrich War ended," Draco nodded, "Sometimes I try to think that I did the right thing, that I saved thousands of lives, that I prevented another massacre ordered by my father like House Collem's or the Sack of Kizah during Viktor's Rebellion but..." Draco was no longer crying, he was just laughing madly, hiding all he was truly feeling, or perhaps letting it all go, "I was selfish, and I did it for myself more than anyone else in this world. More than once Dimitri told me that he should have killed me when I was still in the crib, but when he told me that same thing that night, I don't know, I knew that this time he would keep his promise to end me."
"I know how that feels," Paul squeezed his eyes shut, "Draco, You were not selfish. You yourself said that you did it to protect your girlfriend."
"I couldn't save Zuria. The morning of my father's funeral, my brother and an Zer Alycandro Alfaro visited me in my cell and told me about it," Draco clenched his fists, "But Bloodimir was good to me, he almost always was, and after a couple hours, while I was sitting in my cell drawing happy faces with a rock on the floor, awaiting my execution, he returned and helped me escape. He took me out of the dungeons and put me on a ship bound for Zagarrta with help from Zer Alycandro, who boarded with me. We arrived in Amphitria's Port, spent a couple of nights in Eren's Utopia, crossed Kayro, we made it through the White Chain, climbed Yeti Mount..." Draco made a pause.
Wow! All of that was gone, swallowed by burning waters. The cataclysm had defeated what no army or conqueror ever could, not in vain did Finn's grandfather call that period of time The Age Of Fallen Empires.
"Ãmi pare rÄu, I got lost." Draco said and blushed.
"No problem," Paul nodded.
"Anyway, long story short, I became a part of a master plan to make Zafira Rahman the new ruler of Evalon and in no time, I was in Yeti Mount with her, planning how to overthrow my sister." Draco looked up, meeting Paul's eyes, "Paul, I heard you went through something similar, and that you were also in prison, and I think you and I..."
"We're more alike than I thought," Paul whispered, turning to look at Alex, who was as frozen in shock as he was.
Draco's hand was still on the table, there for Alex to hold, and this time he wouldn't let go. He would never do it again.
"We will always be there for you." Alex took the vampire's hand in his, looking up at him. "And I want you to know that I will never, ever let you suffer alone again. You're my best friend, and nothing is going to change that."
"Alex, thank you very much but... I don't know... I need to talk about my father... Do you think you can leave Paul and me alone?"
"Oh, sure, no problem," Alex got nervous. "Well, I'll just leave you two alone, I guess, I mean, what you experienced with your fathers is not much of my business, it's something I wouldn't understand anyway so... Sure? I mean, if you want I can, I don't know... What do I say now?" Alex tried to force himself not to make this awkward. With a rapid typing on the computer, he straightened, "I already sent the song to Finn, it's in the cloud so... I'll be leaving."
"MulÈumesc. And please forgive me, Alex."
"No, little buddy, don't apologise," Alex said, numb, "Don't apologise for needing to talk to someone who knows what you have been through."
"Alex, you're sweating," Paul said.
Shit! Alex hadn't noticed.
"Oh I... I better get going." Alex needed a distraction.
He needed to get out of here.
"Alex? Are you sure you are..."
"I'm fine, Paul," Alex nodded, eyes glassy, ââ"Just treat Draco right or I'll kick your ass." He made his way down the hall in a hurry.
Alex walked into his room and closed the purple fur door, with his head hurting.
He instantly felt crushed by these four purple walls with golden accents.
Everything was tidy except for a towel spread out on the purple furry bedspread, but Alex felt claustrophobic, as if his bed and dressing table with a huge mirror took up too much space, taking away oxygen.
"My past always comes back to haunt me," Alex made his way to the crescent moon shaped window and watched as the sky turned a darker shade of blue.
The moon was going up its way through the clouds already.
It was too late now, the sun was gone and he'd be stuck inside his own mind without any light, waiting for an invitation to come out of the shadows again.
"Oh Draco. If only you knew," Alex whispered, roaring and punching the window hard enough to make it crack. His knuckles bled but he didn't care. "No, don't be stupid, Alex. You can't talk about it. You swore you'd never think about it again. You can't change the past."
Alex let his head fall against the window frame and stared sightlessly at the sky until darkness entirely fell upon Lyonfort.
Below, the rose garden was illuminated by torches as couples walked by.
"Maybe I need to distract myself a little," Alex whispered, "I've been good. I've controlled my addiction for quite a while. I think I deserve this. It's just a little relapse. It'll be a little slip. Something casual and quick."
He knew it was a stupid idea.
But he found himself opening the window before he could stop himself.
"You never had a problem getting a date," Alex told himself, taking off his sneakers, letting the nails of his feet and hands grow. They became long, black claws in a sec, covered in light brown hair, "Just a quickie and I'll be back before I have to leave for the hotel."