Male haunted armour x reader (sfw) (Patreon)

There's the possibility that this could have an nsfw addition at some point, as I've figured out the logistics, as it were, but for now, it's sfw. I really really enjoyed this one, and I'd like to write Ruben a story too at some point. Anyway, here's Aubrey for you. I hope you like him! 

Brief warning of violence and blood, but it's not in any great detail, and it's told in the past tense in the story... 

Knuckling the small of your back with a grunt, you straightened from where you’d been sitting hunched over for the past hour or so, set down the wad of cotton wool down in the tray, and coughed again. Despite the mask you wore, the smell of conservation solvents was really starting to get to you now after two days of working on a selection of the grand castle’s armour collection. It wasn’t too corroded, just a patch here and there, but the old, yellowing lacquer took some scrubbing at, and even with all the windows in the upper gallery flung wide open, it was a heady environment to work in. 

The rush and hiss of the sea outside and the constant calling of gulls provided the most wonderful background, and from the minstrels’ gallery of the great hall, you could admire the intricately carved corbels of the ancient hammer-beam roof in your little breaks. It was one of the finest examples in the country, or so you’d been told.

“Come on,” your colleague grinned at you. “Tim went home hours ago, and it’s time for us grunts to go home now too. I know you love that piece, but you’re going to get caught in that storm if you don’t leave now.”

You looked out of the window and groaned, seeing the sky darkening rapidly, the clouds broiling over the iron-grey ocean. Waves, whipped to frothing foam, kicked against the jagged rocks of the shoreline, and you shuddered. “You’re right. I’ll just finish up this bit – then it’ll all be complete…” you grinned.

“Fair enough,” he chuckled fondly. “Don’t take too long. I’m going to clock off. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You nodded, and finished up, wiping the last bits of grime and the beginnings of corrosion off the beautifully-etched gorget on the makeshift table you’d set up for the job. With your boss and now Jason gone too, you had the place to yourself for a blessed half hour of quiet work. 

Fondly patting the helmet that you’d finished the day before with your blue-gloved hand, you returned it to the armour stand but left the gorget on the table. You hadn’t worked out a neat way to attach the neck piece to the armour stand yet, and you didn’t want it sliding off overnight and crashing to the floor. 

The dark of the storm was racing the approaching dusk as you gathered your belongings together into your messenger bag and stripped off the disgusting nitrile gloves. Stopping by the bathroom on your way out to wash your hands and face, you made your way through the winding, dimly lit stone passageways, hoping you were going the right way as you headed for the courtyard exit. 

Of course, with your sense of direction, you went the wrong way and emerged into an unfamiliar hallway in a totally new part of the castle. Heavy curtains hung over all the windows, and only the faintest light flickered from a door at the far end. The ticking of a pendulum clock in a room somewhere nearby set your heart pounding, and as you heard footsteps and saw a shadow move across the patch of light, you fled back the way you had come until your surroundings started to look vaguely familiar again. 

You leaned against the cool masonry of a passageway, letting the chill of the stone seep through your woollen jumper while your heartrate galloped like a careering horse against your ribcage. Something about that corridor had been… off. You didn’t believe in ghosts and fairy tales, but since you’d taken up this short contract to tend to a few pieces of the castle’s crusty armour collection, you’d seen one or two things that had made you question your beliefs at best, and your sanity at worst. 

“Stop it,” you said, hearing a distant rumble of thunder, even through the castle’s immensely thick walls. The storm must have broken right overhead if you could hear it from there. 

You made your way back down the staircase and finally found the right corridor to lead you to the courtyard where you had parked your tiny, ancient car. For a metalwork conservator, it was ironic that you drove such a rust-bucket. But then again, conservation wasn’t exactly the most lucrative of careers, no matter how much job-satisfaction you got. 

Sighing, you brought your tattered leather bag up over your head to shield your face from the worst of the sheeting rain, and scurried out into it. You were soaked to the skin in seconds anyway. 

Shivering violently, water running down your arms and down the back of your neck, you fumbled with your keys and opened the old car. The door complained raucously, but you slid in, jeans and jumper both soaked, dumped your bag on the passenger seat, and slammed the door shut. 

The rain made frantic, pattering circles on the windscreen, battering the glass so hard you half expected it to crack, while the roof became loud as a timpani skin in the middle of a concert. Sliding the keys into the ignition to get it going, you heard the car cough, choke, wheeze, whine, and then fall utterly silent. 

“No, no, no, come on,” you growled. “Not now.”

You tried again and again, but the engine refused to turn over. 

“Please…” you sobbed, resting your forehead on the wheel. 

There was nothing for it. You’d have to go back inside and call a local garage or something. Breakdown cover wasn’t something you could afford at the moment either. 

Gathering your courage with a deep sigh, you grabbed your bag and reversed your journey, somehow getting even wetter though you hadn’t thought that would be possible, and as you barrelled into the open archway of the entrance to the house, you collided with someone who you could have sworn had not been there a moment earlier. 

You ricocheted off them like a rubber ball and landed hard on your hip the flagstone floor with a yip of shocked surprise. 

Looking up you saw a face pale as fresh paper, and long black hair falling around an exquisitely sharp-featured, androgynous-looking face. 

“Forgive me,” the figure purred, holding out a leather-gloved hand to you. “Are you hurt?”

“No, no, I’m fine,” you said and allowing his immensely and unexpectedly powerful grip to tug you to your feet. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.”

“My name is Ruben,” he said, letting go of you as soon as you were upright. “I see you’re having car troubles.”

Wet clothing began to stick to you and a wave of goosebumps shivered over you. “Y-Yeah,” you stuttered, teeth rattling from the cold. “Won’t start… Stu-Stupid thing… I’ll have to call a ga-garage…”

“Perhaps you would like to stay here instead,” Ruben said. “I doubt they’ll come for you in this weather, and if they do, it’ll cost you a fortune.”

You looked up at him, and he smiled. You took in the crinkles at the corners of his lips, and then noticed he was wearing a dark red and black coat and smart black trousers, and in fact he looked like he’d just stepped out of a late 19th-century portrait. He even had a long, black cane in his right hand.

Under the intensity of your scrutiny, he stepped back a little so that shadows fell across his face and clothing. “Please,” he said. “You’ll catch your death if you stay in those wet clothes. I will show you to a room you may use, and I will find you some clothes. Have you had supper?”

You shook your head. 

He nodded once and added, “I will see what can be found for you.”

And then the penny dropped. “Wait, you’re… you…” you looked around the corridor and then back at him. He didn’t look a day over twenty five, if that, and yet this was his castle. 

A soft, rumbling baritone laugh reached your ears and he shifted slightly in the shadows. “Yes. I live here, and you are here looking after the treasures of my home. Please, the least I can do is give you somewhere to stay for the night.” He sighed, walking forwards. His footsteps were silent on the flagstones, but the tip of his cane fell with a hard click with each step his right foot made. He had a limp, but his motions were so elegant that you felt clumsy, even just standing still. 

You simply followed him, knowing it would be impolite to refuse, and catastrophically stupid too. You were soaked, shivering, and, as another thunderclap shook the castle, you knew you had little choice. He was right: you’d be lucky to get phone reception, let alone a garage to come and see to your car. 

Ruben showed you up to a room in a part of the castle where you’d had the creepy encounter in the hallway. As you paddled along after him, trying not to drip on anything, you piped up, “Does anyone else live here?”

His syncopated gait faltered only fractionally but he shook his head. “No, it’s just me. I have cleaning staff come in, but they do not live here.” He paused in the next corridor along, his leather-gloved hand on the carved panel of a door. “I promise you that you will be quite comfortable and safe here though.” 

You nodded and swallowed nervously as he pushed the door open. 

The room beyond was a beautiful, oak panelled bedroom, with a carved wooden bed, smooth white sheets, and a fluffy towel already folded at the foot. A painting of the sea hung on one wall, and another of a ship listing heavily in a storm hung on the wall opposite. Across from the bed, mullioned windows looked out over the raging sea, and you crossed to them, drawn inexorably over to them to stare out at the wild scene beyond. 

Gazing out through the rain-blurred glass, you watched as lightning forked down from low-hanging clouds, striking the sea. “Gosh,” you hissed, breath fogging the glass. 

“It is a real tempest out there,” Ruben murmured from the doorway. “I bring some soup up to you in about an hour. There is a bathroom through that door there, and I will find you some clothes.” He nodded at a door in the wall with the seascape that you’d not noticed before. “I will leave them folded outside your door for you.”

“Thank you,” you smiled. “Really, thank you.”

“I would entreat you to stay in your room,” he said carefully. “The castle is a maze in the dark, and there are dangerous staircases. I would hate for you to come to harm.”

“Sure,” you said, stifling a yawn with the back of your hand.

His dark eyes glimmered for a moment before he nodded once, and retreated, closing the door behind him. 

After Ruben had brought you some supper – simple vegetable soup and some beautiful bread – you found yourself lacking something to do. It wasn’t quite early enough to go to bed, and you were tired after a day’s work, but not sleepy yet. It was only as you dug around in your messenger bag that you realised you’d left your camera and sketch pad on your worktable up in the minstrels’ gallery. The only thing you really had to occupy yourself was to edit the million and one photos you’d taken that day, or sketch the storm outside through the window. 

The clothes Ruben had left you were a pair of men’s jeans that fitted you perfectly and a long-sleeved t-shirt that was a bit big for you, but you decided to cuff the sleeves up and see if you could find your way back up there, ignoring Ruben’s warning about plummeting down a staircase in the dark. 

It didn’t take too long, using your phone to light the way, but as you reached the top of the spiral stone staircase that led to the minstrels’ gallery, you froze. A light flickered out there, remarkably like candlelight. You knew there were no candles up there, and, inching closer, you peered into the doorway, shutting off your own light.

It was an effort not to cry out when you saw what was happening. 

There, standing beside the suit of armour you’d been working on, appeared to be Ruben. His long hair was falling loose around his shoulders, and he had his black cane in one hand. In his other hand, he held a small glass bottle, and between him and the armour flickered a ball of blue-green light. 

You blinked, wondering if your food had been drugged. 

As you watched, Ruben leaned his cane against the worktable with all your things on, and un-stoppered the bottle. Inside it appeared to be swirling mist, and once uncorked, it furled upwards into the air, and towards the helmet of the armour. 

You realised that the gorget had been attached to the breastplate, and that the suit was now complete. Then, as the mist coiled itself in through the tiny holes in the closed visor, the whole suit of armour shuddered violently, plates rattling together. 

Then Ruben stepped back and watched as the armour began to move. 

“Good evening, brother,” Ruben said, his harsh voice now fond and soft. “How are you feeling?”

A voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once as it answered him. “Cramped?” The armour shifted its head as though cricking tension out of its neck.

Ruben chuckled and replaced the cork in the bottle, slipping it into his long, red and black damasked coat. “Apologies, but I know how ticklish you are. I can’t have you giggling like a schoolgirl while that lovely young conservator cleans you, can I?”

The armour laughed at that. Its voice sounded deep enough to be male, but it was a clear, warm tenor voice. It seemed to match the delicate floral etchings on the breastplate and pauldrons and the intricate, twisting file-work on the knuckles of the gauntlets, like lace wrought in plate steel. 

You simply stood there, too stunned by what you were seeing to move.

“And you, little brother?” the armour asked, stepping off the plinth. It was careful to avoid the conservation supplies you’d placed there out of the way as it moved, reaching an arm up to raise his brother’s chin. 

“Well enough,” Ruben said.

“You haven’t fed in weeks, brother,” the armour rebuked gently. “You should drink something. You’re looking thinner than ever.”

“You’re nothing but ectoplasm, and yet you still find a way to nag me and look after me,” he sighed fondly. 

“Go on, go and feed. It’s not as if I’m going anywhere.”

“On a night like this?” Ruben said, glancing at the opposite end of the gallery from where you stood where there was a small window. Rain still lashed furiously against it, as though the storm were trying to tear its way into the castle. 

The armour laughed. “I meant from your special fridges down in the basement. I know you keep a supply of blood down there. Go and feed. I’ll come to the library later.”

Ruben nodded, and bowed his head. The light winked out, and plunged the gallery into darkness. A thrill of fear ran down your spine. What you had heard had been impossible, and yet, having seen Ruben close up – with his outdated clothes and ice-pale skin –  that all seemed to make perfect sense now. He was a vampire, and his older brother was a ghost that haunted a suit of armour. Of course. Why not?

God, what had your soup been laced with?

There was a rush of cold air that made you think that the window must have blown open, but all was still and silent for a long moment afterwards. Was that the vampire leaving? Had he brushed right past you without sensing you? 

You shuddered. 

Just as you did, a faint light began to glow at the other end of the gallery, and you looked up to see that the shimmering ball of light had returned. It hovered in the air and you watched as the armour moved slowly along the table. It picked something up, and you realised with a jolt it was leafing through your sketch book. Normally on a job like this, you made minimal hand-written notes with plain diagrams to accompany them. But this time you had spent a long time drawing isolated elements of the foliate etching on that suit of armour, tracing the cracks in the old, battle-scarred steel, and recreating in graphite the overlapping plates of the delicate fingers. 

In short, it was an ode to the beauty of that fabulously-made suit of armour. 

You leaned back against the doorway and instantly regretted the movement as the wooden door clacked against the wall and the suit of armour turned sharply, the sketchbook falling back to the table with a resounding slap that echoed off the stone walls of the cavernous great hall beneath the gallery.

“Who’s there?” he asked, sounding almost as scared as you were. 

“I’m sorry,” you squeaked. “I didn’t mean to… intrude. I just came to get my sketchbook and camera, and then I saw you and Ruben, and…” your breath caught and then your chest began to heave with pent up terror. 

“Oh it’s alright,” the armour said, taking a step towards you and raising one hand. It clanked softly, the metal scraping on metal. “Please, don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. What are you doing here though?”

“My… My car wouldn’t start, so Ruben said I could stay the night…”

“Did he now?” the armour chuckled, seeming to relax.

“What… are you?” you breathed. 

He laughed at that. “Ah, that is a good question,” he said, bringing his finger and thumb to the chin of his helmet in a comical attempt at a pensive pose. “You might say I’m a ghost, but that’s not technically true. In reality, I’m… it’s more like… um… you see…” He floundered. “Oh dear… I’m doing this very badly, aren’t I?”

You watched as the pauldrons slumped, as though his shoulders sagged, and then the breastplate tipped forward, head sinking. 

“It’s alright,” you said. “Answer me this instead. What’s Ruben?”

“Oh that’s easy,” he said more cheerfully. “Ruben’s a vampire.”

“Right. Of course he is,” you said flatly. 

The armour sighed. “I can tell you what happened to us if you like,” he said. “It might be easier than trying to tell you what I am, exactly, because even I don’t quite know.”

“Alright,” you said. 

“Shall we go somewhere more comfortable?” he said. “It’s a bit dark and spooky up here…”

A snort of laughter left your nose before you could stop it. “You’re kidding me,” you practically giggled. 

“What?” the armour asked, stopping abruptly almost as soon as it had begun to walk towards you. “Don’t you think it is?”

You looked around you. The wooden balustrade of the minstrel’s gallery was all that separated you from a sheer drop into the empty, shadow-bound great hall below, and the flickering ball of energy that floated in mid air just beside the armour wasn’t exactly lending a sense of normality to the place. 

“Oh, I suppose you’re right,” the armour chuckled ruefully. “Any place with a walking, talking suit of armour has to be a bit spooky… But the drawing room is much nicer, I promise. Come on, I’ll show you.”

And it began to stride towards you. You shrank back away from it instinctively, and as it drew level with you, it paused. Your heart hammered in your chest as you stared up at the empty helmet. It was over six foot tall, and you could hear the blood pumping in your ears. 

“I give you my word that I will not harm you,” he said, bringing a closed, gauntleted fist across his chest to where his heart would have been, had there been a living human inside that suit of armour. 

“Right,” you said quickly. “Thanks.”

He inclined his head a little, and then stalked off again, walking carefully down the worn, spiral steps. He and his little ball of flickering light led you through the castle until you realised you were completely disorientated. Trying not to panic, you let him walk ahead of you until you came to a small, panelled door. He pushed it open and stood back for you to walk through.

It was pitch black on the other side, and you faltered. 

“Oh, forgive me,” he chirped, ushering the little ball of light through. “Brice, if you would be so kind.”

“Brice?” you asked. 

He nodded and pointed at the ball of light. “Brice is the ghost my favourite hound. He likes to follow me round a lot, and his light is very useful.” The armour laughed again and added, “He is perfectly capable of taking on the form of a dog, but most of the time he stays like this.” The shoulders of the suit rose and fell rapidly in a nonplussed shrug, and you stepped into the room after the little ball of light. 

The armour moved faultlessly around the room and in no time a spark shot into the grate, and a fire began to crackle. 

“Ruben doesn’t like electric light,” he said. “It hurts his eyes. Luckily we’re used to oil lamps and braziers.”

“What… What’s your name?” you asked as he ignited an elegant oil lamp on a table, the light glimmering off the beautiful etchings on his armour. In the half-light, they looked like inky tattoos. 

“Oh, I haven’t introduced myself, have I? How rude of me. Please, forgive me,” and he gave a half bow. “My name is Aubrey.”

You told him your name, and sank into a deep, crimson sofa behind you. As you settled yourself onto it, the ball of light suddenly expanded, leaping sinuously forward and stretching into the form of a massive wolfhound. Your eyes went wide as it leapt up onto the sofa and promptly laid its head in your lap. 

Hovering nervously over its head, your hand trembled. “Can I touch him?” you asked. “I mean, am I able to?”

The armour shrugged. “Some people can, some people can’t. It all depends on how your own energy interacts with ectoplasm. Try it. You won’t hurt him either way.”

You lowered your hand, and as your fingertips sank into the swirling, pale grey fur, you felt a feather-soft touch beneath your hand. “I can feel him!” you giggled, and he looked up at you. It was disconcerting still to be able to see your own knees through the wolfhound’s outline, but he seemed to like having his ears fussed. His ghostly tail wagged, and Aubrey laughed again. 

“This is so surreal,” you breathed after a moment. “I’m in an ancient castle, with a ghost dog in my lap, talking with a suit of armour while there’s a vampire on the loose somewhere as well.”

Aubrey laughed heartily and sank down to sit cross-legged on the hearth rug. The image seemed odd, like an overgrown child sitting on a play-mat with no toys. “I don’t think anyone’s known the truth about either one of us in decades,” he said after a moment. “It’s nice.”

“What was your brother doing when I got there?” you asked. “He had some kind of glass bottle…?”

The armour raised his hand and let a stream of white smoke curl through his fingers like a coin trick before it vanished back inside the gauntlet. “He was pouring my essence back into this armour,” he said, voice suddenly subdued. “He removed my essence so you guys could clean me like the rest of the armour. I can’t survive long if I’m separated from it, but he’ll take me out again tomorrow morning before you start work.”

“How…?” you began, not quite knowing the right way to phrase your question without sounding rude. 

“How did I end up in a suit of armour?” he asked bluntly, and you rolled your eyes and nodded. “My brother and I died the same night,” he began. “In fact, we’re step-brothers, but that never made much difference to us really.”

Thunder rolled around the house, as though wanting to get closer to hear his tale, and you stroked Brice’s ears while you listened, the big dog calm and unfazed by the storm. 

He told you how his stepmother, Ruben’s mother, had been a vampire, covetous of the vast estates and wealth of Aubrey’s father. Ruben, at that time, had been human, and unaware of his mother’s true nature. She had wanted Ruben to inherit, and once he did, she planned to kill him too. 

You shuddered, half wishing you had not asked any of this, but you couldn’t stop him there. 

You grimaced, half hiding your face in Brice’s hair as Aubrey went on. “She killed my father, and then she turned on me. I lay on the floor, bleeding out, and somehow my essence got infused into this armour,” he said, raising his hands up to look at his empty palms. “Ruben tried to stop her from killing me but she turned on him too. He killed her as she bit him, and some of her blood must have mixed with his own, because when he awoke, he was as he is now… as was I…”

Transfixed, you sat on the sofa, wide eyed, staring at him. “That’s awful,” you finally hissed. “Who would try to do that to someone…? To kill their own son…”

A new voice, harsh as bared steel, sounded from the doorway to the drawing room behind you. “Hardly a suitable topic for a bedtime story, Aubrey…”

Aubrey jumped almost a foot in the air, and it would have been funny if you hadn’t also been shocked out of your wits by the sudden appearance of Ruben without the faintest whisper of a warning. 

Brice seemed surprised too, because one minute you had soft, smoky fur beneath your fingers, and the next a tennis-ball sized light was scooting over to hide behind Aubrey’s broad back. 

“Brother,” Aubrey said. “She saw us upstairs in the gallery.”

Ruben’s eyes narrowed and he stalked into the room, his rocking limp less pronounced now than it had been earlier. His cheeks looked less like marble too, a faint flush just gilding his high cheekbones.

“You’ve fed, I see,” Aubrey said, levering himself to his feet. 

Ruben’s eyes became dark, fierce slits, a faintly red light glimmering in them which might have been the firelight, but you suspected it was not. When he opened his mouth to speak, elongated canines flashed. “Too bad, otherwise I might have been tempted by this one –” he said, pointing a finger at you. “But I’d only end up blood-drunk. I never should have let you stay,” he snarled, rounding on you.

Aubrey strode over to him, towering over him despite Ruben’s already impressive height. “Little brother, you forget yourself. This isn’t like you,” he said, his resonant voice making your ears ring. Brice’s light shrank down to the size of a ping-pong ball and began to flicker. In fact, all the lights in the room began to dim, and the armour itself seemed to glow as though the ghost was drawing energy from them all at once. 

Ruben stared up at him, but sighed a moment later, the tension leaving him as the light faded from the chinks in Aubrey’s armour a heartbeat afterwards. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He turned to you and bowed his head. “I apologise. Though I did ask you not to wander.”

“I’m sorry,” you said. “Though I have to ask, was it really to keep me from going arse over teakettle down a staircase, or was it in fact to stop me from finding out about ghost-pup and your friendly suit of armour over here?”

Both brothers cracked a laugh at that, the tension snapping as swiftly as the lightning blasts above. 

Tiredness began to seep through your bones, and you yawned. 

“You need to go to bed,” Ruben commented. “It’s getting late.”

“You don’t need to state the obvious,” you grinned. He seemed taken aback by your friendly forwardness, but smiled slightly, just the merest twitch of the corners of his pale lips. “Well,” you added, “Thanks for not, you know… having me for dinner… literally…”

He smiled fully then, showing his canines, and you shrank back a little. 

“Brother, behave,” Aubrey said, digging him in the ribcage before looking at you. “Where are you staying? I’d like to walk you back to your room.”

“I… erm…”

“The usual guest room,” Ruben supplied, moving to sink down on the sofa you’d just vacated. “And,” he said, grabbing your arm in a vice like grip as he passed, staring down at you with irises flushed red and glowing like hot coals. “I do not need to impress upon you the need for silence on your part, concerning us…”

“No, Ruben, you don’t,” you said flatly. “The last thing I’m going to do is betray you and your brother to anyone, especially since you let me stay here after my car packed up.”

He looked taken aback, as though he’d expected you to be frightened, or at the very least impressed, by his little show, and then hitched a lopsided smirk. “Very well then. Goodnight.”

Aubrey led you up to your room, with Brice bouncing along like a runaway tennis ball, occasionally shifting mid-bounce into a dog and back again. Your guide was silent apart from the slide of metal on metal and the gentle clank as he walked, until he coughed and said, “I’m sorry about Ruben.”

“That’s alright,” you said. “He’s clearly just protective of you.”

“He’s always been like that,” Aubrey murmured as you emerged out of another flight of stairs you didn’t recognise. “Even though I’m older, he’s always looked out for me. Especially now,” he said, raising his palm and moving his delicately-jointed fingers with a heavy sigh. 

You raised your hand and touched the metal – something you’d not done yet without your gloves on – and were surprised to feel how warm it was. “Aubrey,” you breathed, thinking back to his story about how Ruben had tried to save him. “It must be hard for you…”

“I think it’s harder for him actually. I think he misses having me around… as I was… you know?”

You nodded. “I’m curious: is there a portrait of you anywhere?”

He turned his helmet so that it looked like he was staring directly at you. For a moment you thought you’d said the wrong thing, and then he sighed. “I suppose it’ll be easier for you to picture someone underneath all this metal,” he said, turning to go. 

You kept your grip on him and he paused, tugging at you by accident as you stopped him from stepping forward. He whispered your name questioningly. 

Feeling uncharacteristically brave, you brought your palm to the cheek-piece of the helmet, and heard a shuddering sigh from inside the armour. A shiver ran through him, all the rivets rattling and plates clanking. 

“I don’t need to see it if you’d rather I didn’t,” you said.

He brought his gauntleted hand to your waist and put his other on your cheek, mirroring your gesture. The smooth leather of the underside of the gauntlet was warm too, almost like skin. As he exhaled, you saw the familiar white mist furling through the slits of the helmet. 

“Aubrey?”

He tensed and the mist retreated. “Apologies,” he said, retracting his hand and stepping away. “Come, I’ll show you how handsome the portrait artist wished I was.”

And he strode away down the corridor. You passed the door of your bedroom, and emerged onto the creepy hallway. As you passed by the patch of carpet where you’d seen the shadow move, Aubrey announced that that was Ruben’s room, and, just a few steps further down the corridor, he drew to a halt. 

“Well, that’s me,” he said, gesturing up at a small, modest, renaissance oil painting. 

You gasped. It honestly looked like it belonged in the National Portrait Gallery. “Looks like a Lorenzo Lotto,” you murmured, stepping close and raising your finger to a hair’s breadth from the canvas. 

“Because it is,” he replied quietly from behind you. 

“No way,” you hissed, turning to look at the suit of armour. 

Aubrey was watching you. You couldn’t see eyes, but you could feel his gaze on you. His chest rose and fell as though he had breath inside real lungs, and there was a slight tremor in his hands. 

You turned your back on the painting and stepped close to him. He watched you approach without moving and when you placed your palm flat on his chest, it suddenly heaved. 

“Can you feel that?” you asked. “Do you have sensation, I mean?”

“Yes,” he rasped, the plate still rising and falling rapidly. Then he stepped back and said, “You should get some rest.”

“I wish…” you began, but shook your head and moved away down the corridor. 

“You wish what?” he called after you, remaining where you had left him. 

You paused, looking back over your shoulder. “I wish that tomorrow when I touch that armour, you’d still be there. I wish I could spend the day with you in my hands.”

He swayed slightly but then whispered, “I can’t,” so faintly you almost missed it. 

“I know,” you said. “That’s why I stopped myself from saying it first time.”

He watched you go and he was still there as you slipped into your room and closed the door. 

The next day you discovered a hot breakfast of boiled eggs and toast waiting outside your door for you, with no sign of anyone who could have left it. You almost laughed to think of Ruben cooking eggs for you with a silly apron on, but you took it into your room and ate at the little table beneath the huge expanse of window. The storm had died down overnight, but the waves still seethed and frothed like a wild, rabid animal, and misty clouds snagged on the jagged rocks of the coastline. 

At nine o’clock you met your boss and Jason coming up the stairs, and explained to them what had happened. “That was nice of him,” Jason said, clapping you on the back. “It’s alright for some.”

“Yeah,” you agreed. 

As you stepped out onto the minstrels’ gallery your breath caught when you saw Aubrey’s armour standing stock-still and utterly lifeless on the plinth. The juxtaposition between his animated, lively gestures last night and the dead, empty metal now took your breath away. Between his feet you saw that your sketchbook had been placed leaning against the greave. 

“You ok?” Jason asked. 

You nodded and approached Aubrey. Reaching out to touch the armour, you snapped your hand back at the icy shock of cold metal beneath your fingertips. Something prickled on the back of your neck and you turned to look back at the doorway to find Ruben standing there in the shadows, watching you. He had his left hand in his pocket, and he drew it out a little way, revealing a glass bottle of swirling mist. 

You smiled weakly, sadly, and then he slipped the bottle back into the safety of his pocket and limped out onto the balcony. There was no direct sunlight here as the sun had not moved round far enough, and anyway it was shrouded with thick cloud that morning. Nevertheless, Ruben looked paler than you remembered him from the previous night, and as his cane clunked on the boards of the minstrels’ gallery, Jason and Tim looked up. 

“I trust everything is in order,” Ruben said. 

“Of course,” Tim replied, striding forward a pace or two. Something made him draw up short though, and he became somewhat flustered, as though getting too close to Ruben had made him suddenly awkward and uncomfortable. “We should probably be done by lunchtime actually. We’ve only got this last one to finish off and mount –” he eyed the scattered parts of the final suit of armour on the workbench. 

“Very well,” Ruben said. “I won’t be around when you’ve finished, but just close the door after you leave and send me an invoice in the post, as agreed.”

Tim nodded nervously, wiping his hands on his hips. “Will do, will do,” he chirped. 

Ruben favoured him with a half smile and then turned to you. His eyes didn’t seem red today, more of a cocoa brown, and they turned from hard flint to molten chocolate when they saw you. He offered you one final smile and then he turned to go. 

“What was that about?” Jason hissed as Ruben’s syncopated footsteps retreated down the stone stairwell. “That guy was creepy.”

“I like him,” you said. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”

In fact it took you longer than Tim had thought to finish, and it was nearly sunset by the time everything was done and all the armour successfully and safely mounted on its stand. Once you’d loaded up the boxes of supplies into Tim’s car, you went back up to the gallery to collect up your own bag and belongings. Your sketchbook still rested between the armour of Aubrey’s feet, and you stooped to collect it up but it slipped through your fingers, and out of it fell a handwritten note. 

I hope you read this before you leave. Please stay another night. I would love to talk with you and get to know you better. There is so much to show you here before you go, but I understand if you have other matters, or do not want to remain here alone with us. I will never forget your touch though, as long as I live. Ever yours, Aubrey. X

You held the note in trembling fingers, barely daring to breathe. You knew that old souls were supposed to be romantic, but this was something else. You also knew what your answer would be. 

Jason popped his head through the doorway a moment later, and startled the living daylights out of you. “Sorry,” he laughed, skipping up the last step and coming over to you. “You coming?”

“I… I’m going to try and get through to a garage for my car,” you said. “So I don’t need a lift, thank you.”

“You sure?” he asked. “I don’t know how I feel about leaving you alone with the Creepy Count…”

“Ruben’s not creepy,” you said, smacking Jason on his muscular bicep. “He’s just… old fashioned. Go on, I’ll be fine.”

“Alright,” he grinned. “Just checking that the castle hasn’t put a spell on you…” He waggled his fingers and then left you, eyes sparkling. “Text me, ok?”

You nodded. 

Picking up your sketch book properly this time, you curled yourself up on the floor in a corner and decided to draw until Ruben inevitably returned to restore Aubrey’s essence to his armour. 

Sure enough, the distinctive rhythm of Ruben’s footsteps slid into your awareness an hour or so later, bottle in hand. 

He paused when he saw you sitting there with your sketch book on your thighs, knees drawn up, pencil paused halfway through shading the back of Aubrey’s helmet. Ruben’s face was soft, pensive, almost sweet, and then he smiled. “You stayed,” he said. 

“Yeah.”

He held out the bottle to you. “Would you like to do the honours?”

The magnitude of what he was giving you washed over you like one of those crashing breakers outside. “You mean it?”

He nodded. He entrusted his brother’s essence to you, and you took the warm glass bottle gently, caressing it for a moment before moving your fingers to the cork in the top. It began to glow, like a phosphorescent liquid, and you smiled. “What do I do?”

“Just take him near the helmet. He’ll take care of the rest.”

You did as instructed, Ruben hanging back. You didn’t miss the way his knuckles went even whiter as they gripped the head of his cane. Gently, you un-stoppered the bottle, and the mist began to pour out. 

Instead of drifting towards the helmet as it had done the previous time you’d witnessed this, however, it began to curl backwards, coiling itself around your neck. 

You gasped as you felt his touch on your bare skin, goosebumps breaking out all over you. “Aubrey,” you breathed, and the thin ribbon of white mist tightened around your shoulders, squeezing you. 

Ruben watched from a distance with his eyes glowing red and glassy. After a minute or so, he murmured, “Aubrey…” and the essence, which had begun to go a dull kind of grey, obediently made its way towards the helmet, seeping in and disappearing inside. 

“What…?” you breathed, but the armour came to life and stepped off the plinth in a clanking, rattling rush. 

“You stayed,” he exclaimed, his chilly metal arms embracing you. 

You sucked in a breath as the cold steel pressed against your skin, and he shot back. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’ll warm up in a bit.”

Laughing, you turned to see Ruben’s back just disappearing through the doorway. “Is he ok?” you mouthed. 

Aubrey followed your gaze and then sighed, shaking his head. “No,” he said. “But he will be alright. He doesn’t resent me. He just… He’s just lonely I think.”

You pressed your hand to Aubrey’s chest and he hummed happily. “So,” you said. “What did you want to show me?”

If Aubrey had had a mouth with which to smile, you knew he would have been beaming at you. Instead, he put both hands on his hips and puffed his chest out comically. “How about the treasury?” he said, and laughed as your eyes lit up. 

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