Old Company

He could feel it again.
 
He could feel the thing crawling along his mind as he walked silently through the manor. It was late - almost time for his meditations - and the house was quiet. The servants slept. Arinelle slept. But he, of course, did not.
 
And neither did the hunger that prowled along his spine with half a hundred tiny pin-pricks of feeling. Glacier claws wrapped around a heart which did not beat and fetid breath upon the back of his mind like a some creation from a madman's nightmare along his back.
 
He was hungry. He'd meditated. He'd fought. He'd hide it behind the smiles and joy and care for everyone else - but it was there, waiting for him, in the dark.
 
Tonight the monsters in my head
Are screaming so damn loud
But I built walls so high
So they never even make a sound
 
It's a mask, it's a lie
It's the only home I've ever known
'Cause being who I really am
Has only left me more alone
 
He drained another glass of the cow's blood before setting another kettle on the stove as silently as possible. It would do nothing to rouse the house, not to mention the risk of rousing the staff. If Old Ms. May saw him cooking, let alone cooking blood to drink - warm and raw from a thick mug - there would be hell to pay.
 
With a small snap, he turned the stove off, pouring one last glass, and desperately hoping that everyone would stop smelling like food any night now.
 
I am not okay
And I need you to see it
I have so much to say
And no one to hear it
 
Never strong enough. Not strong enough to resist the thing that had taken and used him like a suit. Not strong enough to fight off the voice in the back of his mind that wanted nothing else but to revel in blood.
 
Us, he'd said to Arinelle. Always, he'd said to Cardinal and Maelie. Together or not at all, he'd said to Nel - one part sad that she walked the same nights he did and one part utterly, utterly, envious of the freedom of her undeath without the hunger clawing at every waking moment.
 
But there was no facing this monster together. There was always some time when he was alone. How to face a monster together, when that monster was himself?
 
With so much at stake
I always feel like a burden, let it silence me
You'll never understand
Why it's so hard to say
I'm not okay
 
He slowly prowled back to his bedroom, hiding the evidence of his late night glass, and tried to ignore how much the house smelled like a feast hall.