|
The Kiss - exhilarating. Overwhelming. Cian stretched out on the loveseat under Jasper, his breathing shallow, his eyes closed.
And then. And then. Jasper says that word, and Cian's eyes fly open. HIs Beast howls, and he shoves Jasper away.
In shoving, Cian seems to shove the call of his Beast down, too. "What the fuck?" His accent slips a little, but he's not just angry. He's scared. Terrified, his mind racing again. He wants to kill Jasper, he wants to make sure the Mekhet never tells anyone...
Jasper is not the most strong of men. Shoved pushes him back and off the other as he thumbs across his lips. "That's certainly enough dramatics, young man. If I were going to tell anyone, I would have done so in the month I've known."
Jasper's tone makes Cian flinch, but he stands to stare the other Kindred down. "Don't you dare condescend to me." Cian's accent is firmly in place again. "A month? A month? Jesus fucking Christ, what's wrong with you?"
"If what you're doing isn't worthy of being called dramatics given I've allowed you your little farce, but it's getting ridiculous," says Jasper as he moves to adjust his rumbled clothing. He remains seated. "I wanted to see if you'd come clean and explain why you felt the need to lie to me, but it seems you'd let me bind myself to you and still not have the decency to be honest."
"Arrogant of you to think that its any of your business." Cian's voice is cold. "Arrogant of you to think that you deserve to know why someone might want to remake oneself."
"Remake yourself with lies, Cian. You no more lived through the Great Depression than I was an actor on the silver screen," says Jasper with a gesture to the credits of What We Do In The Shadows. "It isn't arrogance to think that, eventually, someone will be honest with you if you're patient with them."
"Do you doubt that I'd be honest with you, given time?" The truth is there in the way his face twists with guilt. "I'd give anything to have lived when you did. Anything. And instead I'm..." A grimace, and he collapses back into the loveseat. "I saw the chance to make myself into someone I could stand, and I took it."
"Oh yes, it was so great in the past. No one died from shitting themselves to death because the drinking water was contaminated or any number of things going on that today seem unthinkable. Slavery, for instance, a casual thought that even among kine, there are difference. Utter ignorance - the same that had people like you and I hiding among the Church so we would be allowed any chance to not be forced into a role," rants the elder as he stands now. "Oh yes. Please. Give up all the things so many worked for to progress humanity. I'm certain that would have been such a romantic notion, but the reality was much less so."
"I'd hope you wouldn't think so badly of me as to assume I have any romantic notions as to how difficult life might have been. Experiencing it second, third, fourth hand is more than enough to have taught me that. I want that experience, I want to see that, to live that progress, not to become some fucking play toy for a corporate Savage who's only interested in unlocking all our secrets so she can monetize them." Cian spits the words out, getting more heated as he goes.
"Finally some bit of truth about your sire," says Jasper with both hands raised to the sky. "You do realize you're speaking with an Elder Mekhet, right? Normally people are even more paranoid that we know things about them we couldn't possibly know. I was beginning to think my reputation of incompetence for love had preceded me."
Cian huffs, and arches an eyebrow. "We all flirt with danger in our own ways, do we not? I hadn't heard of you before we met, I don't spend much time with the First Estate. I'm sure that's surprising."
"Is this where you give me a different backstory?" asks Jasper with a long stare. "Because if you end up lying to me again, after I've already drank from you, I am going to be very cross. I could have destroyed your lie a hundred times over by now. I want to know why?"
"Then why haven't you?" It's a little demanding.
Jasper holds up the first finger. "I assumed you'd explain yourself in a reasonable fashion." Then a second. "I was semi-concerned you'd be hurt." A third. "I imagined if it was a plot to get close to an elder, then diablerize them, I could get away fairly quickly." A fourth. "You were an enjoyable date in the brief time I'll be awake."
Cian listens, and finally nods, running his fingers through his hair with a sigh. "...Thank you. I'm unused to this sort of leniency, to be perfectly honest. There are many reasons I left Boston, and the way the City treats its neonates was one of them. This was...a way to look into the culture here, without being harmed by it."
"... You're part of the Carthians. Did they put you up to this?" asks Jasper before running a hand back to smooth over his hair. "Or was this your own idea - and before you lie, think twice. I can read your thoughts as sure as your Facebook status."
It's an almost amused huff, that Cian lets out at the mention of Facebook. "I was made to join the Dragons, becoming a Carthian was my own little rebellion."
Through the haze of anger that still lingers, comes a sweet sense of relief. Living a lie takes its toll, especially when Cian's been lying to those he actually cares about. Like Jasper.
Oh fuck, he cares about Jasper. A slight pink tinge appears on his cheeks.
"The Carthians don't know I'm not an elder, and I have no plans on informing them otherwise, at the moment."
Jasper slowly sinks down to the couch to hold out a hand. A peace offering, perhaps? "I'm not going to out you. In my time, it was quite dangerous to do so. Still, I will not tolerate being lied to more. There's simply no need."
"Clearly." Cian's mouth twitches upward slightly, and he ever so tentatively takes Jasper's hand. It's dangerous, to tell Jasper everything. But oh how he wants to.
"I was - I am - a sailor. That much is true."
"On what, a yacht?" asks Jasper before raising the other's knuckles to press a kiss on. "Navy?" he guesses
"I have sailed a yacht - as I recall, you were with me." A flash of a grin. At the kiss, Cian's pulse spikes, and a flicker of disbelief crosses his face, the feeling pounding in his skull. To be forgiven that easily...
"Yes. Aboard the Constitution, eventually - I was there when she sailed for the first time in one hundred sixteen years. Quite the experience."
"This sire of yours - I don't know them. I don't recognize the taste," which was likely a comforting thing... to Jasper. "Why did they make you join the Defiant?"
"That's what she was, and so all her childer were, too. I learned to stop asking questions of her very early on. She claimed to have an interest in history, I...I'd rather not talk too much about it, if it's all the same to you." The expectation of a rebuke, of any sort of rejection, is clear, and Cian even leans away slightly. But his request is nowhere near the usual sharp tone in which he cuts off questioning about his past. "The memories are not happy ones, reliving them, even in their fragmented state, is...unpleasant."
"Fragmented?" asks Jasper as if that one word held so much information on its own. "I take it your bloodline possesses some unusual abilities?"
"...No, I meant in comparison to your own perfect recall. I...don't have a bloodline, as of yet." Cian is clearly a little confused at Jasper's interest in the word. "I have no interest in remembering the specifics about that part of my past, and often find it difficult even when I do try."
"Only perfect when I can-nevermind," decides Jasper. "You really do have yourself a complicated situation at the moment, don't you?"
"You mean in how I'm now forced to throw myself upon the mercy of an Elder Mekhet with whom I've spent the past month in a variety of courtships?" Cian arches an eyebrow, his heart hammering.
Jasper's lips quirk ever so slightly into a smirk. "I suppose that is one way to look at it, yes. Tell me - you're a smart lad. What do you think will happen?"
"I think if you'd wanted to back me into a corner you already would have. And I think...you have enjoyed our time together enough to give me a second chance. To pretend this didn't happen. Or possibly..." Cian starts to smile. It's a little self mocking. "You would enjoy assisting in my own little masquerade, for whatever reason, and not only keep my secret but help make it more watertight."
"Mmmmm... there are a notable amount of games one could play with this, but." He holds up a finger as he looks to Cian. "I want you to be honest with me when we're alone. I don't intend on having to repeat this process with you. Is that understood?"
"There is no longer a reason for me to be dishonest with you." Cian shrugs. "I do reserve the right not to answer questions, and I have worked for entirely too long cultivating this accent not to use it in front of you. I promise you it's more attractive, anyway." He finishes speaking with a smile.
"I want you to know I've not been digging around in your memories - surface thoughts only," says the Mekhet with a hand to his heart. "But if you try the mysterious route, I may have to read a chapter or two ahead."
There's a beat, and Cian's brain flashes warning signs, just as quickly quashed by "logic and reason" as he processes that.
"I appreciate your restraint. It might be more than I deserve at this point." He shifts closer to Jasper before turning to face him. "It's difficult to speak about my past for a variety of reasons. The history I have built for myself feels more real, in some ways."
"You could make it more real," comments Jasper lightly. "Better able to hold up through carefully sculpted memory. And, of course, through shared memory."
"With your help, of course?" Cian's lips quirk up. "When will you start wanting things in exchange for your help?"
"Start?" asks Jasper with a raised brow.
A thrill of fear runs through Cian's body. "Or are you already keeping track of this debt? I should like to know the terms in advance, if they're beyond not lying to you when we're alone."
"I'm not so crass as to ask for things like boons. What I mean is that I've already wanted things from you. Sailing lessons. Your time. Perhaps now, you can help me fit in better at the modern era - and you can claim that I'm the one helping you."
Jasper's hand is squeezed as Cian visibly relaxes. "I would quite like that arrangement. I would...also like to kiss you again, if that's amenable." He's preparing for rejection already, though his face is calm.
Images begin to flood Cian's mind - things dastardly and certainly lewd, coming unbidden and in a wash of lust tinted through the lens of one so recently tasting another's vitae.
Jasper's smirk says who's to blame. "I suppose I could do so."
Cian's breath catches as a blush floods his cheeks. But he's only confused for half a moment before he grabs the front of Jasper's shirt to pull him into a desperate kiss. It has the tinge of apology to it, and he tangles his hand into the Mekhet's hair, holding him close.
And that may be how they found themselves come sunrise - though likely with significantly less clothing...
|