February 17th 11:45pm

He flew most of the 18th. Sleeping as best he could on the flight. Customs gave him very little trouble, & on his way to call for a cab, he bought several tacky postcards of the Eiffel tower to send home to friends.
The house was dark when he arrived, lit almost exclusively with candles. It was an opulent place, like nothing he had seen before. A servant showed him up to Dave's room. Already he could sense something was not right.
"Hello?" he called, timidly. Picking his way past candles, & flowers. It was creepy. it looked like a funeral parlour, or more like the set of Nirvana's Unplugged thing. Easter lillies. orchids. tuberose. & roses so red as to be almost black. The scent of candlewax & blossoms was cloying.But it seemed to be masking something else, something...odder.
Dave stayed a distance from him. His movements were odd, & he looked unhealthily pale. & stared at taylor incessantly, as if fasinated by him, as if he'd never seen him before.
"You must be tired. I'll arrange a place for you to rest."
Well, of course, rest'd be cool, Taylor agreed, but what was so urgent? He tried bringing up band things, but Dave seemed distracted. Finally, Taylor agreed to go sleep off his jetlag.

February 19

Next thing he knew, he was dozing on a street corner somewhere. He could not remember having left the house. It was all terribly confusing. There was a noisy & fashionable looking club nearby, so he decided to go in. Get some coffee if possible. See what parisian nightlife was all about, & then maybe make his way back.

After awhile, he noticed Dave was in the club, so maybe he'd meant to be here? But Dave was eyeballing some nasty looking debutante, & Taylor got distracted for a moment.
That was hardly surprising. He had turned his head, only to realize a man at the bar was staring at him, with weird intent. He had just barely focused on the guy Jeez, he looks like Kurt Co- when somehow the stranger was just...gone!
Taylor shook his head, fuddled. & saw dave going out the back door. It took Taylor awhile to reach the door in pursuit. & by the time he did...well, things were muddled again here, because, well, frankly, he thought, something had happened. Something BAD.
Something change-your-life, traumatic bad.
He seemed to remember running, shouting, blood. Dave was hurt? Maybe. And then, panic, fear, pain. Something had had at him, he remembered some sort of creature. Sharp teeth. Fear. & then, until the next night, nothing.

February 20th

Conversation was awkward. And Dave sat close- too close, touching Taylor, his clothing, his hair, as tho to seduce him. Taylor began to get creeped. Dave was acting too gay. Or worse.
"Look, I'm not sure I want to know why you've called me here. I'm leaving."
Taylor stood up to go.Or thought he had. Somehow, his body wasn't obeying him.Somehow, he was lying down on the bed, relaxing when what he wanted, needed to do was tense, fight, scream. Somehow, when Dave hunkered over him, he couldn't even so much as wriggle.
He could remember tho. The foggy thing wasn't happening this time. He was paralyzed, mute, but witnessing it all.
Dave s n i f f ed him, & that was perhaps the creepiest of all, it was a completely animal-like gesture, & it seems as he reached out to touch him this time, his nails were unusually long. They scratched across Taylor's face as dave spoke quiet words meant to soothe.
& then Dave had opened his mouth, & Taylor saw, for one terrible moment what was coming, before it descended on his unprotected neck...

Dave had never learned the finesse, the grace of other vampyres. To him, altho he was bloodbound & thus giddily, almost lovelornly loyal to Kasi, still the act of his making had been unwanted, painful, traumatic, a rape. It was why Dave's feedings upset the vampyres of his tiny family.
It was what he did to Taylor now.
Taylor was in agony, the fangs like red hot knives, the pulling of blood being drawn from his veins like electric shock thru his whole body. He felt nauseous, he was so terrified. Fortunately, Dave HAD learned not to drain completely. That had been a hard lesson for him. He let up after a while. Wiped his mouth, looking well pleased with himself, eyes almost smug, & glowing red. "Sorry, Taylor, I just had to." He apologized glibly. It was no apology at all. Even in his weakened state Taylor realized, this had been the fate Dave had planned for him all along.

& then, Dave had heard something, a commotion outside. He'd unlocked the door, run out with preternatural speed to jump into the fracas. Whatever spell he had over Taylor was broken.

It took Taylor what felt like an eternity to clear his head enough to sit up. He retched, and then he dry heaved, nauseated, hoorified by what had happened to him. He wiped the spittle from his face, but he could not breathe properly, in Dave's haste, he had damaged Taylor's windpipe. His throat hurt, as tho infected. He was dizzy, & half blind.
It took him all his strength to make his way down the stairs, & he had barely kept himself from falling. In the front lobby he DID fall, &he laid across the carpet, gasping for afew, until he managed to crawl to the door & open it.
Fresh air had never felt so good.
He staggered into the Paris streets, leaning on things to keep himself upright, gurgling for help.

& thus Cronus had found him.
It never even occurred to Taylor to be frightened of Cronus. There was something so all pervading, so intense about the elder, that he had simply collapsed in that one's stronger grip, assuming well, if he wasn't saved, well, no matter. What would be, would be.
He didn't remember Cronus draining him to the point of no return. ddin't remember lying in an alley, dying. He didn't remember Dave giving him drink, trying to revive him, or that he had clung to that fount to the point that he had nearly drained Dave to death. He faintly remembered Kurt, crouching over him, giving him the sustenance that saved him.