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A year beyond escaping the laboratories deep in the Parisian catacombs, No. 70 is faring well. Really, he is.
The old building he and his newfound family are squatting in is poorly insulated, yes, and their shared mattress is saturated with mildew. But it’s Home for now, one where he can feel safe in despite its shortcomings, and it’s still worlds better than the dark room he was once caged up in.
No. 70 speaks in full sentences now, regularly. He will roll new words around his tongue like the bonbons Dante brings home on rare occasions, saccharine vowels and hard consonants. Sometimes his mouth won’t move properly, he’ll forget what to say or how to say it - the name his new family helped him to pick out sometimes sticks to the roof of his mouth like treacle, tripping him up, and he’ll need to start over again slowly.
‘Johann.’
It’s a two-tone hum, and he likes the way that Riche says it. Her voice is soft, melodious, and so unfalteringly kind. It’s coarse when Dante says it, with a built-in harshness that comes from many other things which frustrate him. No. 70 - Johann - tries not to take it personally. He’s come to realise, through living with these two, that a dhampir with a sad story isn’t something unique to himself. Everybody has their scars, whether it manifests in words that cut like a knife or words which simply don’t come out at all.
Certain words still don’t come together naturally, but through investing his time in books he has come to love what his family deems ‘flowery prose’. Riche complains that it is highly unnecessary in non-fiction, but Johann has tired of stories of the real world long ago. When Dante chooses to read to the two of them, he asks for stories that will take them far away from the vastness of Paris, far from astermite street lamps and catacombs and the horrors that lie beneath them.
When words are elegant and sentences twist, they sound like poetry. There is nothing cold nor clinical, no mentions of dosages, procedures or autopsies. There are degrees of good and evil, as exists in everything, congregating in this abstract concept of love and morality, two things Johann still can’t quite grasp.
He’s sure that love, in a sense, is the reason that Riche will listen along to fiction even though she hungers for knowledge and truth, as opposed to tales conjured by others. He’s sure that love is the way that Dante shows them both the words that they take a particular shine to, spells them out slowly while tapping each syllable. He’s sure that love is the patience it must take to explain what a chaise lounge is, or an armoire or a diplograph.
It is confusing to rationalise where gratitude ends and love begins, so Johann can’t say for certain that he has a grasp on it, but he seeks out this time with them almost every evening to further immerse himself in the feeling. Once they have eaten and scrubbed the bowls clean and warmed enough water for Dante to take a bath, he and Riche will sit together and practice their reading and writing. It is a slow process because the only expert among them, Dante, is busy cleaning himself up.
Johann isn’t entirely sure what Dante does to earn his way in the world, but it often leaves him tired and filthy by the end of the day. He’ll return in a foul mood, made worse by the fact that neither Johann nor Riche are great at making the scraps they can afford into a decent meal, and he won’t mellow out until some of the grime has been scrubbed away. If he’s been particularly terrible he will hover around them sheepishly. Other times, he will simply melt onto their mattress, boneless, and beckon them over to read something from a small pile of books he’s accumulated during his time working on the streets.
If it’s Riche’s turn to pick the reading material, they will pour over A Condensed History Of Airships by Johann du Vergier, of which his new name originated from. Plenty of early schematics litter the pages, accompanied by paragraphs that include long, complicated words that even Dante stumbles over from time to time. There are some anecdotal passages which Johann appreciates more - it’s endlessly more interesting to envision the life someone must lead when surrounded by such impressive flying machines - but for the most part it is practical, explaining which parts go together and why others don’t, documenting various early experiments, the integration of astermite to the engines, and the subsequent rise in popularity.
Riche’s eyes will grow as wide as saucers every time, hanging onto each word and imploring Dante to reread certain sentences so that she can study the lines his fingers trace. It’s as much a teaching exercise as it is storytime. Riche will conk out dreaming of big industrial giants gliding through the sky, and Johann will watch Dante’s long, dark eyelashes droop as sleep takes him. When it’s finally Johann’s turn to sleep, he dreams of the three of them flying someplace far away, to a world far removed from the hostile and vast Parisian streets.
Does paradise exist beyond the scope of what they can see?
…
One day, Dante brings back a book. The front cover is blank, with no inscription on the sides, and there is a dark stain of unknown origin marking the corner. He tries to keep a neutral expression, but that in itself is enough to pique Johann’s interest. The usual grouchiness that Johann has come to expect simply isn’t there.
“Some older dham gave it to me,” Dante explains over dinner. The rye bread has spots of mould on each slice, and Johann picks them out deftly as he listens. “Said we needed an education. I dunno what he meant by that, but…”
“Education?” Riche parrots back. “Education like learning?”
“Guess so.” Dante frowns. “I checked it over earlier though. Looks like a storybook, so I dunno how it will help.”
“Well, stories are nushment for the soul,” Riche declares with complete confidence. For the first time all evening, Dante cracks a smile.
“Nourishment, Riche. Nou-rish-ment.”
Dante catches Johann’s eye from across the table, and the warmth makes Johann’s heart squeeze. For a moment Dante’s eyes change, gold as the flame at the candlewick burning between them, and Johann knows he should hate it - they all should hate it, they’re expected to - but he just can’t do it. Not when that gold is now intertwined with the exasperated fondness Dante holds for Riche, the memory laying down roots in Johann’s mind.
It’s a pretty colour on him, but all too soon it fades away.
When the bowls have been cleaned and Dante has rinsed the soot from his body, the trio huddle together and Dante opens to the first page.
Johann will never forget the night they first discovered The Adventures of Kresnik. He won’t forget the way Dante’s eyes grew wide as he read on, each word shocking him more than the last. He won’t forget Riche’s face creasing with the most radiant smile, how her giggles filled the room at Kresnik’s witty commentary, how she gasped in delight when it was discovered that his golden eyes were a blessing, not a curse, in how they could neutralise a vampire’s power in an instant.
He’ll never forget how Dante relented to their requests for character voices despite commenting on how ludicrous the story was, how the three of them stayed up for hours discussing the story of a dhampir who refused to make himself smaller in a room, and who refused to hide his powerful eyes behind corrective lenses designed to hide the shift in hue.
(Dante stopped wearing his own lenses soon after, but when pestered, staunchly denied Kresnik playing any part in the decision.)
Above all else, Johann will never forget how tears sprung to his eyes at Kresnik’s parting words, a soliloquy to the audience on the final page.
‘We dhampirs are more than a sum of our parts. We are dreamers, we are scholars. We exist in ways incomprehensible to humans or vampires. These eyes of mine are no burden, for they allow me to see the world as it truly is.’
For weeks after, for months, for years, Riche begs Dante to return to The Adventures of Kresnik on nights when the world has been particularly cruel. He rolls his eyes, he laments that the story is corny and contrived, but he relents every time.
And on each occasion Johann will sit with them, listening. With each retelling, the life they have built around themselves feels a little less bleak.