The Mist and the Lightning. Part 19

“You add inner fire to the beautiful appearance of my son, and this is the perfect combination! External and internal complement each other. When they are not separate, but together, then you become one, you become a person.”

“You are being carried away again,” Nik drawled. “Why do you always philo… philosophize? Just like Tol. Don’t forget that your son is a fool, and most of the time I can only use his mind.”

“The inner strength of the Demon gives true beauty to the human shell. You are beautiful! Feelings for you have conquered me! Really, the most powerful weapon in this world is love! And it had disarmed me! This is the effect of a broken dam! When you truly love, it’s like a bright light shines on you, and you bathe in this light. I…”

“Vitor, I’m not as beautiful as you think!” Nik interrupted him, apparently suspecting that this would go on a long time, “just as I seemed small and thin to you, I also seem beautiful to you now. But not to such extent!”

“For me — to such extent!”

“It’s just that something coincided in your head — the idea of beauty and my face, the appearance of Inness. When you were young and saw her, she immediately stuck you. And then it started. And that’s why I look so beautiful to you. It’s a because of Inness. I agree, for many people I am cute, but not to the point of madness, as for you. And when you saw me for the first time during interrogation, you were not so impressed.”

“I was impressed.”

“But you didn’t want me then, did you? And then, when you came to the Estate, we talked for a long time, you didn’t even think of me as a lover.”

“You were very dirty.”

“Damn, I was the same! Everything was the same! Your look has changed, you got feelings for me, Lis had spurred you on.”

“As well as you. The redhead brought us together because he understood everything before we did.”

“Someday you will see me again … adequately, and you won’t understand why you were so crazy before.”

“You want to explain to me that beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Kors nodded understandingly, “so be it. But now I can’t change anything. Not only that, I love you with scales too.”

“Oh, no,” Nik, it seemed, was even frightened, and sat up on the bed. “No, you don’t love it.”

“I love it! I know it’s just one of your skins. I was frightened, I won’t hide it, but everything quickly returned to normal. Anger and resentment subsided in me for the umpteenth time.”

“Subsided so much that you thought to run away from me to Leonardo!”

And Kors froze:

“Forgive me! I beg you!”

“You wanted to betray me when we arrived in the Black City!”

“No! No! I wouldn’t have survived it myself! I would kill myself, I swear!” Kors folded his arms across his chest.

Nik looked at him carefully. His eyes were like a bottomless sky on a cloudy day:

“I have always been drawn to you, people, even though I have been so cruelly betrayed by you many times… Maybe at least you won’t betray me.”

“Never!” Shouted Kors, continuing to press his cupped palms to his chest with all his fervor.

“No, you will still break my heart, Vitor,” Nik said. It seemed that Kors’ emotional demonstration of feelings didn’t make the right impression on him. “You try to do it this every time and hurt me, you will get your way sooner or later, I feel it.”

“No! No! I won’t!”

“But that’s what you are doing! How many times have you broken my heart when you showed me to the masters, humiliated me, tossed me aside, beat me with words, every day you told me that I was a fool and drunkard…”

“But you're really a drunkard…”

“Vitor! Go to hell!”

“I was just stating a fact.” Kors was barely able to keep from laughing. He was so amused by these ingenuous emotions of confusion, indignation and misunderstanding of such impudence from Kors, they were changing on Nik’s face one after another, making him look warm and familiar.

“That’s all, Vitor, go to hell! Now I myself will tie you to a post and beat you!”

“No,” Kors shook his head, “you really don’t like beating me. You hand me over to Prince Arel, you don’t beat me yourself,” Kors smiled slyly, “and you’re a drunkard,” and, looking again at Nik’s facial expression, he laughed out loud.

He heard that Nik loved him, and therefore wasn’t afraid of anything. He was happy and relaxed.

“Well, since I’m a drunkard, let’s have a drink then? Will you pour me?”

“Yes,” Kors took the empty glass from him, went to the table himself and poured wine, gave the glass to Nik.

They drank. After several days of torments and restrictions, Kors was unusually well, and he was literally being carried away.

After drinking his wine, Nik moved closer to Kors, hugged him around the waist and buried his face in his chest, pressed himself like a child, like his son. Kors was overwhelmed by a wave of tenderness.

“Nick, my favorite boy…” he stammered from overwhelmed feelings. “Have I brought you back? Have I got my boy back? Have I returned him?”

“Yes…”

“Will you forgive me for everything I’ve done?”

“Won’t you stop loving me again?”

“No! Never!”