Chapter Text
It is around the thousand year mark where an immortal begins to truly appreciate novelty.
At three or so thousand Aro so rarely has a first anything.
This is why delight wars with his bewilderment when a terrified Giuliana informs him someone has called the front desk asking for Marcus. Yes, she assures him, holding the phone against her chest, Marcus. Aro touches her to be sure, and yes, there it is in her memories: past a lifetime of small ambition, a decision to join a shadowy organisation that she does not know if she shall live to regret - there, the voice of a young woman, North American, distinctly asking for a ‘king Marcus’.
Aro thanks her and takes the phone in a daze. He must hunt down Marcus, he supposes. It is a fortunately easy task; Marcus has few haunts and deviates from his course about as regularly as the sun does.
He has to check Marcus’ thoughts just to be sure… Sure of what exactly? That in the interim two months since Aro has last touched his skin he hasn’t… Ordered a package and had his name placed on some sinister telemarketer’s list? Signed up to an online dating service and handed out the number for Volterra’s front desk?
It beggars belief. Marcus hasn’t done anything unprompted for nigh two thousand years - if he did that would surely fufill Aro’s need for novelty for at least a century. Maybe a whole half millennia.
No, Marcus’ thoughts when he finds him lingering in the corridor to the tower are exactly as expected (wretched depression).
In his disappointment Aro almost forgets the woman on the phone.
He savours for another moment the sheer mystery - for the answer is surely going to disappoint, nothing is ever as interesting as he likes to imagine it to be - and then holds the handset to his ear.
‘Hello?’ he asks.
‘Marcus?’ the woman asks. Young, uncertain. Not an unpleasant voice, though harshened by the ridiculous technology.
He could lie of course. Lying is rather second nature to Aro. It would serve his purpose better but no, at present there is no need. Aro can usually charm his way around an interaction (even without his gift thank you very much Caius).
‘Ah, I’m afraid Marcus is quite indisposed, however I-’
‘I’d like to speak to Marcus. I can wait.’ she says firmly, dismissing him as if he is another secretary.
To say that no one outside of his family has spoken to him thusly since he was counting his age in the decades is an understatement. There’s some more novelty, he supposes. He could imperiously announce that he is the king of the Volturi and he will not be spoken to in such a presumptuous manner, that’s what Caius would do. Aro, as a rule, makes sure to never do what Caius would do.
‘Yes, well. Might I enquire what exactly it is that this call is regarding?’
The woman huffs, sounding frustrated, before replying, ‘No.’
Aro actually looks to Marcus, just to check this woman really doesn’t know him, that Marcus has found a way to thwart Aro’s gift specifically to hide his uncouth American lover. But no, if it is so his brother is a brilliant actor, he studies the cracks in the walls of their palace like it’s going out of style.
‘Might I ask how you know Marcus? I rather thought I knew all of his acquaintances,’ he says lightly, hoping to allay her hostility.
‘I uh- his name came to me in a dream,’ she says now sounding thoroughly nervous - that is not at all novel, it is the trite human response to their kind.
Before Aro can muster some coherent response to this she cuts in, ‘look, he’s not dead is he?’ Aro eyes Marcus. That’s a rather thorny question she’s posed. Physically, he’s undead. That’s well- it’s in the name; he’s not dead. Metaphysically- Aro can attest Marcus still has thoughts, but not much life.
‘No… He just has terrible phone etiquette.’
‘Are you kidding me buddy? This is important. Just hand the phone over and let me speak to him.’
‘Just a moment,’ he says, for in the tower he can hear Caius and Athenodora… finishing (when the humans invent some true soundproofing then he’ll really thank them) and he doesn’t want Caius to hear him get bullied by an American woman over the phone. Caius would argue they should destroy all the phones, it would be a whole thing.
Aro tries to do as instructed, if nothing else he can escape talking to this frustrating woman, and likely he’ll get to hear her wondrous disappointment when she is introduced to Marcus’ muteness.
He has to force the device in Marcus’ hand and then manoeuvrer Marcus’ arm into the correct position.
Stepping back he sighs, it looks about as incongruous as if someone forced a telephone into Michaelangelo’s David’s hands.
‘Hello?’ the girl asks after a minute or so of patented Marcus gazing into the distance. Marcus has barely registered that there is a phone in his hand at all.
Marcus astounds Aro by sighing into the receiver. Aro can’t remember the last time he earned a sigh. It had to be-
‘Marcus. King Marcus. Are you there?’ the girl whispers as if this conversation has suddenly become clandestine.
Probably not a telemarketer then.
Marcus does not deign her with a response. After a minute she adds a desperate ‘please.’
Marcus’ gaze moves from the wall to look at Aro quite accusingly, as if this were another of his schemes. Aro opens his arms in pure innocence - though, he must admit, it would have been a good scheme. The old Marcus never could resist a damsel.
‘Yes,’ the word is somewhere between a hiss and a sigh.
Caius rounds the corner, whistling, just as Marcus utters his first word outside of court for… well it would be since Carlisle was with them. He halts with all due astonishment.
‘Oh thank God,’ the girl whispers. Someone should really tell her that whispering does not make her inaudible to vampires but Marcus won’t and Aro certainly isn’t going to deliberately expose himself to her vulgar New World rudeness again.
‘I have to report a crime.’
Aro and Caius still and share a glance, and then, before Aro can think of protesting, Caius has snatched the phone out of Marcus’ hands and is all but shouting into the receiver.
‘A crime? Where? Committed by whom?’
Aro quite understands Caius’ panic. They’ve had plenty of exposures over the years, but none in this new information age, and certainly none where a bloody human blithely rings them up to let them know the secret is out. If nothing else it’s another first!
‘...Marcus?’ the girl asks nervously.
‘No this isn’t bloody Marcus-’
‘Well excuse me but I was speaking to Marcus.’ Aro’s laugh is only intensified by a dark look from Caius. Had he said he disliked her rudeness? Indeed it is wonderfully enchanting.
‘Listen here you stupid girl. I am the fucking king so if you have a crime-’
‘Oh. I didn’t realise, apologies,’ Caius grunts, somewhat mollified until the girl adds, ‘still, I’d rather talk to Marcus if it’s all the same.’
‘It’s not all the bloody same-’ Caius cuts off abruptly as Marcus extends his arm and holds out his hand.
‘Hand over the phone,’ Aro hisses. In this moment he forgets himself; he doesn’t care if the girl is about to go on her local news station and announce to all and sundry that vampires are real, he’ll take anything for some activity from Marcus. Caius is a rotten bastard but he loves his brother too; he hands the phone over.
Slowly by both vampire and human standards Marcus brings the phone to his ear,
‘Yes.’
‘Marcus?’
Marcus sighs into the receiver again.
‘Was that other guy I talked to also a king, the not-shouty guy?’
Marcus regards Aro warily, Aro waves and nods just in case his brother needs a reminder.
‘Yes.’
Gods she’s turning Marcus into a regular chatty cathy.
‘Oh!’ The voice sounds embarrassed again, ‘tell him I’m sorry about that. I uh- I didn’t realise.’
Aro weighs up the merit of this apology. In the end he decides he doesn’t really care all that much so long as she can get to the point and expose the vampire who has let loose a human with knowledge not only of their kind, but of the Volturi, as quickly as possible. And who knows, perhaps this odd phone call will be the thing to shock Marcus out of his slump. Then it’ll be water under the bridge as far as he’s concerned.
‘Anyway. I’m reporting a crime.’
Aro and Caius lean in.
‘Yes,’ Marcus says.
‘Do you say anything other than yes?’ the girl asks.
‘Am I being tortured?’ Caius asks Aro. Aro isn’t entirely sure.
Marcus confounds that question by not replying and the girl’s own strange shyness takes back over - where had that shyness been while she’d been dismissing him as unimportant organ meat? - and she adds,
‘Sorry, that was so rude! Anyway!’ she laughs nervously, ‘there’s a crazy vampire named Victoria who’s trying to kill me.’
Marcus doesn’t know what to say to that. To be fair, it's an odd one.
Aro glides next to him and speaks into the receiver - he will not play another round of ‘where’s Marcus?’ today.
‘Hello, the non shouty one here, that is, I’m Aro. Worry not, dear Marcus is still very much on the line, I simply have some clarifying questions if that’s alright.’
‘...Fine.’
‘Wonderful,’ Aro purrs, ‘For the sake of ease perhaps we could have your name?’ He is very conscious that a phone call is not enough for Demetri’s gift. It is undoubtable now that the girl knows the secret and if, somehow, inexplicably this Victoria fails to kill the caller, they will need to hunt down and murder her.
‘You can call me Marie,’ she says, she might as well say ‘my name is absolutely not Marie, I’m not a complete idiot.’
Aro will bet however that it’s either the name of a female relative or a middle name, possibly a best friend - ordinary people who come up with an alias prefer something easy to remember, something familiar. It’s not much; it’s the first piece he needs to find her, should that become necessary.
‘Marie, a wonderful name, biblical you know, why I once met-’ Caius practically spits venom at Aro, ‘ah apologies, the mind runs away from one!’
‘Now, just to be clear: you are reporting the vampire who is trying to eat you for exposing you to our kind.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, unfortunately, we don’t generally punish vampires for attacking humans. It would be rather hypocritical.’
She huffs, he can practically hear her rolling her eyes four or so thousand miles away.
‘Sure. But don’t you punish them when they spend months failing to kill said human, thus letting the secret stay out?’
‘I suppose we do,’ Aro concedes, ‘though we don’t usually,’ ever, ‘receive the accusation from the hunted human.’
‘Well if she succeeded we’d all have no problem, but she’s not. Ergo, rule broken.’
Aro ignores the horrible American use of Latin, a beautiful language butchered by a ridiculous people. He has to hand it to her.
‘Have you considered letting her eat you?’ Aro rather imagines not, but all the same, it’s worth an ask. He can already see this affair is going to be nothing but a headache - how on earth does a vampire, superior in every way to humanity, fail to track down and eat one measly, audacious mortal?
‘I have but eventually decided against it,’ she says quite sincerely, Aro finds himself once again astounded by this human. He’s sure if he touches her all her oddities will make sense but for now every response appears chosen to be the most bizarre yet sincere thing she can say.
‘That would be letting her win. If she can’t track me down, what is she even worth as a vampire?’
Aro would have thought Caius would appreciate the sentiment but apparently this conversation has already ruined his mood. He joins Aro at Marcus’ other elbow - Marcus shifts uncomfortably - and growls into the receiver,
‘I command you to let her eat you.’
‘No. You’re not my king,’ she says defiantly.
‘Insolent human. Fucking Americans. We should have let you get nuked.’
Caius retreats back to lean against the opposite wall, glaring at the phone and by proximity poor Marcus.
‘Ah, well, apologies for that. We will certainly track this Victoria down and take care of her. Where exactly is she?’ Aro asks.
‘North America.’
‘Where in North America?’
‘What? You think I’m going to tell you where I am? I’m not dumb. America isn’t a big place, you’ll figure it out. You can’t miss her, red hair, red eyes, very growly.’
Caius returns before Aro can speak, Aro cannot move in time to shut his brother up.
‘Tell us where you are, you wretch, so that we can put an end to you.’
‘No no! My brother of course jests, we would not kill you if we found you, haha, Caius you are such a wit.’
‘Yes,’ Caius smiles slyly at Aro, like they’re playing good cop demented cop, ‘Tell us where you are. We won’t hurt you. I’m sure we’ll be such good friends,’ honestly if Caius is going to pretend at being sincere sincere he shouldn’t hiss like a damned snake.
The brothers are met with a dry, rather Marcus like silence, one of his silences which feels decidedly judgemental rather than simply empty vessel,
‘I liked you more when you were honest, Caius. Kill the redhead and we can talk.’
Aro wonders at the soundness of this woman, she jumps from confident, nay arrogant, to timid as a dormouse at the drop of a hat.
‘Well Marcus, that’s all,’ she says jauntily, all but confirming Aro’s mental illness theory - if only he had some way of searching American medical records for Marie’s with personality disorders… He stops himself. He too has been accused of madness for the odd digressions his mood takes; perhaps he’s being unfair.
‘Brother,’ Caius whispers, distracting him from his musings, ‘we have no way of contacting this woman. If she gets away now…’
Yes, good gods! Aro was so enraptured at the mystery that this odd woman offers him he’d almost forgotten the terrible risk this Marie poses.
‘Marcus, repeat after me. “Will you call again to check in?”’
Marcus repeats the question rather lifelessly.
‘Oh… do you want me to?’ Now Aro is quite certain she’s a youth, possibly no more than a teenager. If she has a vampiric talent, he decides, it will involve being both endearing and infuriating in equal measure.
Aro nods. So does Marcus. Caius facepalm can be heard all the way in Firenze. After this he’ll send Felix out to stand in the piazza and say ‘did anyone else see that car backfire?’
‘Yes. Say yes Marcus.’
Aro can see a flicker of something dangerous in Marcus’ eyes. In his bones he feels that Marcus was just debating whether he should say ‘yes Marcus’.
Aro breathes a sigh of relief when a simple yes is breathed.
‘Okay, sure, I’ll call back in a week,’ Marie replies, chipper once more, ‘I figure you guys can probably manage to track one vamp down in a week.’
Caius looks to be considering murdering the telephone at the girl’s insult, Aro places a warning hand on his shoulder.
‘Ciao,’ she says.
‘Ciao,’ Marcus says.
Aro hears a charming crow of delight from the speaker before Marie ends the call.
He touches both his brothers and sees that they all, in extremely different moods, share the same thought.
This Marie is going to be a problem.