It's one of the few nights Nikolaos has taken off from Atlas. Gwydion, Kai, and Laith are doing their own thing, leaving the weekend free for Scarlet and Nikolaos to be alone—which means date night. For once, Scarlet has planned something, the perfect "normal" date.
Giving the couple an opportunity to ruminate on what life might have been if they were humans, Nikolaos and Scarlet get a rare taste for normality.
Set in April 2020 (two months after Scalding Waters)
“Time slowed to nothing; I waited with bated breath for the outcome. It all rested on this moment. Our final chance to succeed.”
Nikolaos always awoke slightly later than me. I sat upstairs, knee drawn to my chest, sipping hot tea and wondering, excitedly, when he’d be up. It was one of those weekends where we were totally alone, without Laith or any of the others. He’d taken the evening off at Atlas to spend the night with me, and I was going to make it memorable. You see, in the time since I had become a vampire, and Nikolaos and I had become somewhat of a couple, we’d had several extravagant dates always planned by Nikolaos. Tonight, it was my time to shine. I was planning us a hot date.
I’d been a virgin when Nikolaos turned me into a vampire, never even having kissed anyone before. Although those celibate years had long, lo-ong gone, I still never got the opportunity to be wined and dined like an ordinary young woman. A pair of dark blue jeans hung over the sofa arm along with the deep blue t-shirt and crimson and navy flannel shirt. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Nikolaos exactly as he was, without ever wanting to change a thing about him, but sometimes playing dress-up could be fun. The same way humans dress up like vampires for a laugh, we were going to be cosplaying mortals. Not that Nikolaos knew that yet.
The air shifted with his revival into sentience, those few moments where the shields were down between us, magick, energy, and emotion free-flowing between our souls. I was the one to shut them down, not allowing him any hint at what we had planned. It took seconds for him to join me in the living room, scooping me into his arms. I giggled, wrapping my arms around his waist, allowing my lips to press against his silken kiss.
‘Bonsoir, ma chérie.’
‘Good evening, my darling,’ I breathed back.
From the corner of his eye, Nikolaos saw the blue and red garments, placing me down to raise the jeans in the air. He looked at them, then looked at me. I flashed a sinister grin, unable to stop myself. The look he gave me was cold and indignant.
‘Oh, and happy date night.’
Nikolaos looked at each item of clothing individually, running a slender thumb over the three-coloured flannel. He did not look entirely happy. In fact, he didn’t look happy at all.
‘Am I being punished for something?’
I snatched the flannel back from him.
‘No, of course not,’ I sulked.
‘Then why?’
‘It’s date night.’
‘I am being punished.’
‘No, but this is a good segway into my point. You know your… penchant for dramatics?’
Nikolaos raised an amused eyebrow.
‘No, but go on.’
I beamed at him.
‘Well, what’s more dramatic than dressing up as a human and pretending to be mortal for the night? I thought we could wear normal-person clothes and go out without having every single woman in the vicinity falling at your feet.’
‘You believe denim will be the conqueror of my seduction?’
I slouched back on the arm of the sofa, defeated.
‘No, not really, but it might be fun anyway?’
I turned doe eyes up to Nikolaos, trying to look as innocent as I could.
‘You have become quite the little manipulator,’ he said at last.
‘Is that a yes?’
Nikolaos’s silence spoke volumes. I had won the battle. Nikolaos always ended up winning the war.
I got dressed in my bedroom, pulling on the red sundress. Small white flowers woven into the fabric trailed in dainty lines up the skirt, tiny green leaves peeking from behind the petals. My socks were green and sandals red. For Valentine’s Day a couple of months ago, Nikolaos had bought me the most beautiful peridot necklace, quickly becoming my most cherished possession. It went perfectly with the outfit. A green ribbon finished off the look, tying up a bunch of my long, scarlet hair at the back of my head.
I looked in the mirror, feeling bizarre and almost uncomfortable. Even as a vampire, I dressed pretty normally, but I don’t think I’d worn colour or a sundress in the eight months since becoming the undead. I’d gotten so used to wearing black, or dark, muted shades, I’d forgotten that, once upon a time, I had actually been quite fond of colour. Those days seemed long, long gone. Wearing anything other than black as a vampire is a risk—spilt blood really is hard to hide on anything else.
Nikolaos rejoined me in the hallway, making my jaw drop. The loose-fitting flannel and tee brought out the long, slender line of his torso, making him seem lankier than he really was. He’d slicked his silken hair back, revealing the sharp line of a jaw caught somewhere between handsome and beautiful. The blues in the flannel and tee brought out dark hues in his viridian eyes, framed by a wealth of black lace lashes.
‘Ma chérie, you look beautiful,’ he said with a small, theatrical bow.
‘So do you, as always.’
‘Am I human enough for you?’
I took his hand in mine.
‘I can’t imagine ever thinking of you as human, but you certainly look the part. C’mon, let’s go play pretend.’
‘Before we do, we must feed.’
‘Might be a good idea to wear a black jacket then. Don’t want any spillages.’ I began to walk towards the stairway. ‘Are we going to Atlas to feed?’
Nikolaos hung back, forcing me to either let go of his hand or stop. I came to a halt, turning to look at him.
‘I cannot go to Atlas dressed this way.’
‘Oh, c’mon, no one will mind. Besides, you’re the boss, it’s hardly like anyone will comment. You don’t look bad.’
‘I never look, as you say, bad. Non, it is not that. Atlas has a strict dress code, I cannot be seen in my own bar disregarding the rules.’
‘We’re running out of time, we can’t get changed.’
‘You desire a night of normality, yes?’
I nodded.
‘Then I know where we must go.’
Just like that, I relinquished control of the date night I’d planned. Nikolaos had yet to return the 1953 Skylark to the garage. Moonlight illuminated the deep-burgundy body, with its long silver embellishments and wide oval lights. He held the door open for me before climbing behind the steering wheel, pulling down the black-headed leaver behind the wheel. With the roof down, we blew our cigarette smoke out into the April night, music playing softly on the speakers. I leaned my head on my arms on the door, watching Nikolaos drive with the cigarette between his lips, fingers tapping a tune on the wheel. He raised those long, slender fingers, removing the cigarette from his mouth, flicking the ash out onto the street. I was mesmerised, from the way the moon streamed silver light over the blue-black of his hair, illuminating the dark contours of his perfectly sculpted face to how the fabric of the t-shirt hung around his body. Nikolaos turned to look at me, cocking his head to the side.
‘What are you thinking about?’
‘You can read my mind.’
‘I would rather you tell me.’
‘I’m thinking about how beautiful you are. I’m wondering if, in an alternate reality, we’re doing exactly this, but we’re off to go eat dinner at some little restaurant because we’re counting our pennies, and sharing popcorn in the cinema with stupidly oversized drinks. Would you be driving me home afterwards, to my parents, or maybe we’d live together, in our tiny studio apartment? I work a job I don’t enjoy—a cafe, or something—and you create beautiful things with your hands, but when we’re together, the rest of the world becomes nothing compared to the safety of each other. Or would you even have ever looked at me, in this alternate reality, without death bringing us together?’
Nikolaos took another drag on the cigarette. We were approaching central Britchelstone, flying past the many houses leading to town, passing the mansions with their iron-gaited driveways on the outskirts of the city.
‘This is your fantasy of us? Being poor and unhappy.’ He flicked the cigarette into the street. ‘Why do you think I would not have looked at you?’
I shrugged.
‘No, it’s not a fantasy. I wouldn’t change a single thing about you—about us. I’m just wondering what our other selves are doing, the mortal ones.’
‘If I were mortal, we would never have met. I would be long buried in a tomb excavated by your modern archaeologists.’
Nikolaos pulled into a parking space, our voices quieting in that way they so often do in the nighttime echo of a car park.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ I said, closing the door behind me. ‘I guess we would never have met. But say in this alternate reality we did.’
Nikolaos locked the car, then took my hand in his. The sea air hit us as we left the basement of the car park, emerging out onto the patch of grass surrounded by old mansions turned into bedsits.
‘Where would we have met?’ he asked.
‘Hmm, well, you’re seven human years older than me, so not school. What’s something romantic? A bookstore, maybe? Or I was a waitress at a cafe and you came in for a coffee.’
‘This cafe at which you are unhappy?’
I smiled, nodding.
‘Yes, that one. Although, it would all be worth it when you came in. Okay, so, we met at a cafe, and you ask me for my number. Maybe I find it a bit weird at first, you are twenty-seven, after all, but then, when I get home, I find myself staring at my phone, waiting for you to call.’ We turned onto the promenade, walking in the direction of town. ‘Where are we going, by the way?’
‘Be patient, ma chérie. I call you, as I said I would, and invite you out for dinner. What do you like to eat?’
‘Hmm, am I being mature or honest?’
‘Honest.’
‘I like American food, a diner perhaps.’
‘One like this?’ he asked, stopping me in front of Waterside Diner, the only 1950s American diner in Britchelstone.
I grinned up at him, unable to contain the excitement.
‘Exactly like this.’
Our waitress led us to a booth lined with crimson leather. Pictures and photographs crept along every inch of the walls, with paintings of old-style camera film swirling across the ceiling. Life-size statues of Elvis and a caricature of an American cop held silver platters with laminated menus, their edges curling and coming apart. Chatter drowned out the music, a mixture of families and first dates, friends and lovers. I stared at the screen above the toilet door, where old cartoons played silently on repeat, a distraction for adults and children alike.
‘What would you order?’ he asked once the waitress had gone.
I looked over the menu, knowing full well we couldn’t eat anything on there. Even the milkshakes were off-limits.
‘We can’t eat any of it,’ I said miserably.
‘This is an alternate reality. What would you order?’
I ran my finger down the menu, hovering over their many options of pancakes and milkshakes.
‘Maple and veggie bacon pancakes. Oh, and a milkshake. Apple pie, but the one with honey whiskey in it, like it says here.’ I pointed to it on his menu. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think I’m childish, after all. What would you get?’
Our waitress came back over to the table, asking us if we were ready to order. She all but ignored me, something I was pretty used to be now, instead faltering over her words to Nikolaos, a pink blush creeping over her cheeks.
‘Two Tennasee Honeys.’
'On the rocks,' I added.
She finally turned to me. Oh, would you look at that, I do exist, after all.
‘Do you have I.D?’
Nikolaos touched the waitress's hand, pulling her back to him. Ice pulsated through the air, the touch of his allure.
‘She does not need it.’
He pulled back before fully alluring her, leaving the waitress to blink absently at him. She shook her head, plastering a smile back over her face, though now she looked more uncertainly at Nikolaos, eyes widening with the first threat of fear. Prey had finally recognised predator. Backing away nervously, the poor girl almost bumped into another of the pink-clad waitresses, narrowly avoiding sending the platter of onion rings and burgers into the air.
‘We wouldn’t be having a second date if you ordered without saying please,’ I murmured.
Nikolaos shrugged a slender shoulder.
‘What would you order then?’ I asked again.
‘I have never tried any of the things on this menu, I cannot even fathom how they may taste. Diets have changed greatly in two millennia.’
I laughed.
‘As you’d expect. Okay, that’s fine, you’re not a big eater—maybe you’ve got first-date nerves, and decide to whet your appetite with something, well, wet. You order a whiskey, on the rocks, of course.’
‘I then ask you how your studies are going.’
‘I wince, remembering how old you are.’
‘Ma chérie, it is only seven years.’
‘Alright, alright.’ I leant my elbows on the table, placing my chin on my fists. ‘Well, I finished college a little over a year ago, and now I’m working. I don’t think I’ll go to uni.’
‘Why not?’
‘I guess, if I’m being honest, I don’t really think I’m clever enough. I’ve never been academically inclined, and I didn’t have a very good time at school. Anyway, enough about me. What about you? What do you do?’
A different waitress came and placed our whiskeys on the table. We both took a sip; for once, I savoured the sweet taste. Nikolaos always bought expensive whiskey that was supposedly smooth if you could make it through the burning. I preferred them sugary.
‘I work with my father on our farm, but I also write music.’
I raised my eyebrows.
‘Music, ‘ey? What instruments do you play?’
‘The aulos and lyre.’
I shook my head, thrown by the answer.
‘The what?’ Nikolaos took a sip of the drink, eyes cloudy with memory. I reached out and touched his hand, pulling him back to the now. ‘What’s a… lair?’
‘Non, lyre. Disregard my answer. I play the piano.’
‘Ah, now that I know. You say your dad works on a farm? Must be tough, all that hard work.’
‘Once I thought it was, until I learned what true hardship meant.’
We were entering the territory of dangerous nostalgia. Nikolaos’s life as a human had not been easy by any means. He’d worked on his father’s farm since childhood, only stopping once he turned sixteen to fight in the first Peloponnesian war. After seven years of battle, Nikolaos returned to find his family had arranged for him to be married to Kleio, a local fruit and nut farmer’s daughter. They got only two years together before Kleio died in the childbirth of their second son, Melanthios. Atlas, their first boy, and namesake of Nikolaos’s bar, inherited their families’ farms, setting him up for a comfortable life as a respected farmer. The same could not be said for Melanthios, who had died at only nineteen in battle. None of this was news to me, but I hadn’t known Nikolaos had always been musically inclined, even before turning into a vampire, nor that he’d struggled with the work on his father’s farm. There were such minor details of his life, yet the fact they were about him, my elusive lover, made them feel significant like the faintest lines of a portrait bringing it to life.
‘I’d love for you to play me one of your songs one time,’ I said, bringing it back round to the fantasy at hand.
‘You would have to come to my house.’
‘Niko!’ I cried, laughing. ‘Bit forward, we’re only on a first date.’
‘You misunderstand. I will come to collect you from your parents’ home, making sure to greet them, as one does when courting a young woman. Perhaps we have time for a hot beverage together, where they integrate me on my intentions with their youngest daughter.’
‘I’m sure you hate every moment of it.’
‘We will drive through dusk-strewn streets to my home, wherein I shall cook you food and serve you wine. We will feast and drink until darkness consumes the city, by which point I will take your hand’—Nikolaos took my hand in his—‘and bring you languidly to my piano. You sit, allowing me to play for you a nocturne, one I have played a thousand times before, yet now, at this moment, my fingers falter. Never, for my audience of none, have I made a single error. Alas, here, in front of the woman of whom I have grown so fond, my fingers are tense and foolish, spreading dissonance throughout the night.’
‘I think it’s the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.’
‘I stand from the piano.’ Nikolaos stood, coming to my side of the table. ‘Pulling you into my arms.’ I rose from my seat, using his hand in mine as guidance. ‘I will stare down at you, terrified you can hear how fervently my heart beats, working up the courage to do this….’
Nikolaos lowered his lips to meet mine, offering me the chastest of kisses. Beneath my palm, Nikolaos’s heart barely beat.
‘We need to feed,’ I whispered, still caught halfway between reverie and reality, as dazed as if it had truly been the first kiss we ever shared, the first kiss I had ever had.
Nikolaos managed to catch the wrist of our initial waitress just as she walked past, preparing to end her shift. Seeing as she was already partially allured, he used that advantage to convince her to show us to the back room. We stepped out into the alley reserved for staff to smoke and chat about annoying customers. The manager had shoved a bench against the wall leading onto another restaurant's back garden. Vines strangled the stone, disappearing over the other side of the wall. We were squished together in the small outdoor space, forced into intimacy befitting what we were about to share with the waitress.
Lights from the pier glowed crimson and cerulean, igniting the night in colour and sound. Music blared, various songs from each edge of the pier swirling throughout the air with announcements for rides and people screaming. Blood flowed through our veins, making every sense heightened, drowning us in sensory overload.
‘My dad always used to take us to the pier,’ I said, inhaling the sweet and salty scents of sugary doughnuts and chips saturated with harsh vinegar. ‘Before Luke was born, he’d take Anna and me. We used to go sometimes just the two of us; it was like our special thing—Anna never really enjoyed it as much.’
‘What part did you most enjoy?’
‘We’d go to the arcades, on the two penny machines. Back then, I didn’t know I was adopted, but they must have adopted me young, because one of my earliest memories is being here with Dad. I was four, maybe. There's a photo of us both holding guns on one of the shooting games somewhere, it was in my bedroom when I was small.’
Wooden slats lined the long walkway, revealing wild waves turned black by night below, curling like beasts waiting to be fed. The pier seemed to rock with the weight of us all, creaking and crying out in protest. We approached the arcade, a vast white rotunda spilling sound and heat out into the darkness. Stepping inside brought with it a wave of new noises, as if we’d stepped through the double doors into a parallel world, one scented by sweat and garnished with the high-pitched ringing of coins tumbling into metal holders.
‘I can’t explain it, but this place smells disgusting and also like food? All the bodies, their heat and blood….’
Nikolaos dragged me to a stop in front of the change converter beside. He pulled out a black leather wallet from his back pocket, feeding a tenner into the machine. I quickly pulled one of the paper cups from the top of the machine, placing it in the bowl where the money came out—a combination of twopences and pounds pooled in the bottom of the cup.
‘Have you ever done this before?’ I asked.
Nikolaos shook his head.
‘I do not consider this to be enjoyable.’
I frowned.
‘Then why did you bring me here?’
‘Because you do.’
I smiled up at him, heart aflutter in my chest. I was pretty sure Nikolaos could count on one hand the number of times he’d done something selfless. This was one of those times. I began to walk off, with Nikolaos trailing behind me.
‘What you might not know, then, is that there’s a method to this,’ I explained. ‘We need to hunt down the ones with the most coins towards the edge, as well as the ones with the best prizes.’
Nikolaos peered into the glass of one of the many square machines; they were pushed together in clumps of ten, all with a different theme. Animals, monsters, Disney characters—there was even one based on a traditional British soap opera. I stopped at the one with a tiny black octopus on a key chain, his woven mouth downturned into a mood of perpetual grumpiness.
‘One gets one's money's worth with the prizes,’ he reproached dryly.
I rolled my eyes. He might be doing something for someone else, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t complain the whole time. Placing the coin above the slot, I held my breath.
‘You have to wait for the little platform thing to be coming back in, and then’—I let the coin drop—‘drop the coin at just the right moment.’
The platform disappeared into the back of the machine, my coin pushing off several others onto the main area. They tumbled into the middle, just a millimetre off from where they needed to go.
Nikolaos stayed, unmoving, at my side, watching me fail multiple times in an attempt to get that bloody octopus. With increasing frustration, I gazed on in amazement at how the coin missed his moody little face every single time. Any rational person might have moved on at this point, but I was stubborn, deciding that octopus would be mine.
Pennies came and went. None of them brought with them the bounty I so desperately desired. I was on my final coin, even the pounds now vanished into the mechanical abyss. Just as I was about to let it go, Nikolaos placed his fingers over mine, removing the coin from my grasp.
‘Allow me.’
Nikolaos let the coin drop. Time slowed to nothing; I waited with bated breath for the outcome. It all rested on this moment. Our final chance to succeed. The twopence clanged onto the metal base, edgy slowly towards the octopus where it hung on the edge, desperately clinging to the last few coins keeping him up. My fingers pressed into the glass, staring on with astonishment as that god damn octopus keychain disappeared down the hole, falling into the tray.
He bent down, taking hold of the octopus.
‘Pour vous, ma chérie.’
I looked at him in astoundment, trying not to be annoyed that he, in one try, had managed to do something I’d been attempting for the past half an hour.
‘Thanks,’ I said sombrely, taking the octopus, holding him to my heart.
‘You look crestfallen, what is the matter?’
‘I was trying to win him for you.’ I held the octopus up to Nikolaos’s face. ‘He even looks a little bit like you.’
He took the keychain from my hand, looking intently into the two black beads for his eyes. Nikolaos’s own eyes flickered to me.
‘I have never been compared to an octopus before. You do not want it?’
‘I want you to have him. I think we should call him Eris.’
Nikolaos actually chuckled.
‘Befitting.’
‘Shit,’ I said, noticing the clock on the wall counting down the seconds. How had I wasted almost an hour slotting coins into a machine? ‘We’re gonna be late for the film.’
Nighttime air breathed over us, blowing away the stifling, oppressive heat of the arcade. I inhaled deeply, trying to rid my lungs of the scent of humans and their many miasmas.
Odeum theatre stretched up into the sky, all bright, shining blues and modern square stone. Tucked into the corner of one of Britchelstone’s sideroads, the cinema was a modern monstrosity amongst all of the Georgian architecture. Blinding fluorescent lights stole my vision, forcing me to blink through the shock of it. Odeum felt like a strange combination of a cinema and hospital, with its wildly bright lights and clinically clean walls and flooring. Then popcorn and cheaply made hotdogs mingled with the scent of stale sweets, reminding us we were meant to be somewhere enjoyable. I led Nikolaos up the ramp towards the till, where our feet finally found blue carpet instead of linoleum.
Our server was young and unhappy, as so often cinema workers are. She had hair dyed a bright red and numerous piercings in her face. Nikolaos picked up the various packs of sweets, looking at them each in turn as if he’d never seen them before. Maybe he hadn’t.
‘I like your hair,’ I said smilingly.
She looked up from the screen suspiciously.
‘Thanks, I like yours, too. Where’d you get the colour from? I’ve been looking for a darker red.’
‘Oh, no, this is my natural colour.’ I raised my arm to show her the trail of gold-red hair along the skin. ‘See?’
The budding smile fell quickly as she returned to punching her finger onto the screen.
‘Anything else?’ she asked curtly.
Nikolaos stopped messing with the display, standing up straight.
‘Popcorn,’ he said, much to my shock.
‘What flavour?’ she stammered back, struggling under the intensity of his gaze. It was one made for sensual, dark delights—not ordering popcorn in the cinema. Poor woman.
Nikolaos looked at me for guidance. It’s not exactly like we could eat it, so did it really matter?
‘Mix, sweet and salty,’ I replied, adding, ‘please’ hastily. I was spending too much time around Nikolaos and Gwydion, not minding my Ps and Qs in such a way.
‘Do not forget one of those, as you say, stupidly oversized drinks, ma chérie.’
Popcorn in one hand and tickets in the other, we climbed the stairway up to the screen. Nikolaos held the 2-litre cup of ice blast, coloured shades of red and blue so unnatural I doubted it was fit for human consumption. Lucky we weren’t human, I suppose.
The lights dimmed, bringing an onslaught of overly loud trailers. I placed the popcorn on the spare seat beside me, bending over the chair’s arm to take a sip of the sickly drink.
‘Am I allowed to know what we are seeing?’ he asked.
I grinned.
‘Dracula, one of the many, many retellings.’
Nikolaos looked at me flatly, clearly unamused. I knew he’d hate it—that was all a part of the fun. Since becoming a vampire, I found watching and reading anything vampire-related the most amusing pastime. Nikolaos did not share that particular hobby with me.
‘You still have not answered me,’ he said, leaning over to whisper in my ear above the shockingly loud effects of the trailers.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Why do you think I would not have even looked at you, if we were human?’
I pulled back, gesturing vaguely to the both of us.
‘Because look at you. Even in flannel, you look like some seductive angel sent to tempt us all into sin.’
‘Tu es folle.’
‘So, we have our popcorn and our oversized drinks, we’ve eaten at the diner, I’d say this is a pretty successful normal date.’
‘Is it everything you wanted?’
‘Not quite. It’s only pretty successful.’
Nikolaos took the hint, reaching over the seat to place a hand on my cheek. I sat up straight, straining over the solid plastic arm to meet his kiss. I’d go so far to say it was an exceptionally successful “normal” date.