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From the street, there seems to be no one up above. Perhaps it's because of that darn obfuscate.
When Cian comes up through the roof access door, there is a Jasper. One that's dressed in a more ruffian's clothes than his usual nerdy attire. No glasses either. Freshly groomed, hair pulled slick back into a tight manbun.
From here, turning to look one way would showcase the historic Christ Church where Ben Franklin rots. To the other? The harbor just across the freeway. It's on one of the ledges that Jasper sits, taking in the view of the man as he rises.
It's not like anyone's gonna see Cian, either.
Fuckin' Obfuscate.
And then Jasper's gaze no longer bounces off of him, after he's through the roof access. He's unblushed, though he looks as sharp as he did the night in Rhea's club, adding a dark peacoat atop a linen shirt and tight trousers held up with leather suspenders.
"Jasper." The ghost of a smile crosses his too-pale face. "It's a lovely evening to be out in the air."
"It is," agrees Jasper before patting the bit of roof railing beside him. "That's some trick you've learned - when did you pick up the art of obfuscate?"
Jasper's lips quirk up. It's as close as he gets to a full smile, really. He, by contrast, is alive for the night, or perhaps the few hours. Perhaps for Cian, but perhaps that's just his own wasteful way.
"A while back. It's very useful, isn't it?" Cian strides forward to settle on the railing, maybe a little bit further away than where Jasper suggested. Propriety, and all. "Slightly more difficult than some others, but. Very well worth the study."
"I've always gone with what comes naturally to me in that regard. Never tried to push my disciplines to ways in which most of my line wouldn't." He eyes Cian. "Are you cold?"
"Not particularly, no - why?" Cian’s brows come together in confusion.
"You look cold," says Jasper as he studies the other. No. Dead. He looks dead in comparison to the warm body of the Kindred beside him.
"Would you prefer I were Blushed?" An eyebrow twitches upward. "I don't tend to bother, when I can avoid notice with obfuscate anyway."
"I don't mind you either way." A pause. "A habit I've picked up with the Invictus. Most of the others don't cause much of a fuss in that regard, but we... do small things. Try to keep ourselves human."
"Understandable enough. I spend much of my waking time pretending to be human, sometimes...I need a reminder that it's all just a sham. But..." Cian's color warms as he Blushes himself, and he gives Jasper the ghost of another smile as his lips move from greyish to a healthy pink.
"I don't mind pretending, right now."
Jasper turns in towards the man, then drops one leg off the edge to straddle the ledge. "Is that all that you do to keep your humanity? Not that spending time with kine is bad. Simply not the only thing one can do to... feel more like a person again."
"I spend more time with books than I do with anything else." He chuckles softly, but it's mostly humorless. It sounds like an old, tired joke that he's told many times over. "There is much humanity to be found in the stories of others."
"There is," agrees Jasper before he starts to study the other elder openly. "You sound like you're used to that lie. Does it feel true anymore?"
"That I spend more time with my books? It's always been true, and it still is." He stares out over the city, though he gives Jasper a glance as the other man looks him over.
"And when did the books start feeling like just repetition?" asks Jasper as he moves to push glasses up his nose that simply aren't there.
The glasses push makes Cian's mouth quirk up into a smirk, a sharp movement. "The wonderful thing about books is that they keep being written. Always something new, always more to learn. And you, what...do you do, to feel like a person again?"
"Many things. I let myself feel. I immerse myself in the culture." A pause. "Every time I wake, I learn a new skill. I date, I make connections. I feel as many of them pass. I make certain to live my life."
"Making connections that are fated to pass seems like a depressing way to live, no?"
"It's how every one of the kine lives every day of their lives. How we would have lived if we had not these extraordinary lifespans."
"...Depressing way to live, no?" He repeats, his voice lightly joking, this time.
"Life can be. We have to find the people who make you smile. Make it a little less depressing," says Jasper as he watches Cian before finally looking away again. "You really were close. Your haven closeby, I take it? We're not that far..."
"Only a few blocks. It isn't cheap, but the location is perfect. Why...?"
"It means if we end up talking until sunrise, we have somewhere to hide out. Assuming, of course, you didn't mind someone spooning you during daysleep," comments Jasper as he looks back to the church.
"...The couch in my front room is just as protected from the sun as my bed is." He arches an eyebrow.
"You'd have me talk your ear off until sunrise, but you wouldn't let me hold you?" asks Jasper with a laugh. "You are cold."
"I haven't said a word regarding the length of time I plan to talk - that was all you." Another quirk of his lips. "Perhaps I have plans to leave well before the sun is up."
"Maybe," says Jasper with a smirk. "What did you picture tonight?"
"A few things." Well that's cryptic, and has the slightest of coy undertones. "Talking until sunrise was among the more likely outcomes."
"You do know it's terribly rude to make me read your mind for answers," says the Mekhet with a sigh. "But I really did want to know..."
"Unless, of course, this was a ploy to trade perhaps?"
"A trade for what? How did you picture tonight?" Cian arches an eyebrow.
"Information for information. We answer wholly, honestly, and therefore we'll learn so much more about one another. Avoid the Danse for the night," suggests Jasper.
"I've never been one to promise whole and honest answers, I don't know that I'll start now. But I will tell you a few more ways I imagined this evening going, if that's the information you're looking for." Cian stares out over the city again.
"Please," says Jasper with a wave of his hand.
"...I arrive and we discover that we have little in common, and aren't worth wasting each other's time." He ticks off a finger. "We talk until near sunrise." Another finger. "We talk until so close to sunrise that it's all we can do to flee to a haven - mine. We discover that we live nearer to each other than we'd realized - and can flee to yours."
A beat, and he takes a breath.
"I arrive and find that you have plans to...attempt some sort of seduction." Cian looks a little like he's regretting Blushing himself as color floods to his cheeks. "Whether I accept or decline, is another set of scenarios. The former having branching scenarios of its own, given how far things go."
"Perhaps we ought to... test the waters?" suggests Jasper carefully as if afraid to spook the man. "Sometimes, even when desire is there, the moment doesn't spark. Such encounters really need such a spark."
He swings off the ledge and onto the roof proper. He stands before the other, offering him a hand as if to help him stand. "Let's see if we would even be compatible that way. If not? We go back to conversation with a laugh."
"I'm drawn to you, I'll admit that freely. I don't spend my nights on rooftops with just anyone." He smiles here, looking up at Jasper before reaching up to take his hand. "I haven't been one to be interested in testing the waters, no matter what scenarios happen to form as I plan my time."
Jasper looks down to the other, just slightly. One arm comes to his side. The other cups the side of his face. The warmth between them keeping out the wind swirling around them.
"Are you interested now?" asks Jasper both as if sure of the answer and waiting for that answer. "Because I would very much like to kiss you, Cian."
A nervous swallow, a hiss of breath - amazing the sorts of tiny responses that are possible when one is pretending to be alive - and Cian clenches his jaw before consciously relaxing it.
"I think I'd like that quite a lot, Jasper." His mouth quirks up, acknowledging the formality of it all, and he leans in. Waiting for the other Kindred, but not staying entirely passive.
Jasper is slow to enter into that kiss. Coming close, yes, but stopping where he can let his breath touch the other's skin in anticipation. A linger there as his eyes search Cian's before they close and those lips follow suit to press in there. The first brush is tender, something offered with the hope that he'd feel something echoed back.
If it was, then that hand on the side kicked into something different. It became a bar to pin the man's body flush with his for the moment as Jasper threatened soft skin with fangpoint, adding in just the moment of danger before he groaned, giving way to the kiss. Knobby fingers in the Gangrel's hair and urging, coaxing more life from him.
In return, Cian's kiss is tentative. Entirely unsure, light and tender.
But he doesn't pull away, in fact, he takes half a step forward, his breath catching and body stiffening with the threat of Jasper's fangs against his lips. And then his arms slide around Jasper's waist, gripping the back of his shirt as he holds on for dear life (death?) as he presses against the other Kindred.
While Doyle was uncertain, it was clear Jasper had been planning this for a while. Light grinding, a bit of tongue, and then teeth again to build up even more of that tension and anticipation. By the time he broke the kiss, his hands had migrated to the back of the irishman's neck and to squeeze firmly his ass.
Jasper was panting ever so lightly from the efforts of the living. "Sparks. There are... definitely sparks on my side."
Cian gets a little bolder, sliding his hands into Jasper's hair and slipping his tongue between the other man's lips for a few moments. As much as he's professed a lack of interest, it doesn't necessarily seem to equate to a lack of experience.
He's grinning, when Jasper breaks the kiss, breathless, his mouth still half open. "...Oh Christ," is all he says before he kisses the man again with a moan, gripping his hair.
So easy to fall from that tight bun. Hair a bit more wild before the Mekhet slows himself with an almost pained moan. He broke the kiss, maybe only to continue it on Cian's neck. "Should maybe... slow down... or I'll have you right... here."
"I'd rather you didn't..." Cian whispers, his fingernails scrabbling against Jasper's back, incidentally tugging his shirt hem up to expose a strip of skin.
"...Have me, I mean," he continues with a bit of a laugh.
"Which is why, perhaps," murmurs Jasper before dragging fangs along the soft portion of neck, following it with a kiss, "we should... slow down..."
Cian gasps sharply at the teeth at his neck, and lets out a soft keen. "Do you always...flirt with danger, like this?" A hand slips into his hair again, gently suggesting he continue his path of kisses.
"Is it dangerous?" challenges Jasper as he begins to lower more. His hands press up, getting under the back of Cian's shirt as he begins kissing and testing fangs on his collar bone. "Have you carefully avoided entanglements? Not let... the taste... tempt?"
"Very...carefully..." Cian mutters. He arches his back against the feel of Jasper's fingers on his skin, and slips out of his coat, letting it fall to the roof behind him.
"I...have been bonded. Addicted...I've no desire to...repeat the experience..." He mutters between gasps and quiet moans.
"Had been addicted?" murmurs Jasper as he continues his way down before nearly growling at the shirt's continued presence stopping more skin contact.
The Mekhet looked up. "As have I. Little choice in the matter, but... I can own the experience and change what I wish about it."
"And what do you...wish to change, about it?" Cian's shirt does button down the front, but he makes no move to undo the buttons. Instead, he catches Jasper's lips for a deep kiss before he has a chance to answer the question. His teeth drag against the other Kindred's bottom lip, and Cian is panting when he finally pulls away.
Jasper doesn't make it completely easy, lingering in touch and clutch while the man pulls back. When he does, he can see the wreck the makeouts have had on the carefully sculpted image of the Mekhet. He, too, is panting.
"Circumstance," he murmurs. "Connection. Mnemosyne..."
Cian’s face and neck are flushed, and he doesn't pull away entirely, seeming content to stay wrapped in Jasper's embrace. "None of those need a bond, do they...?"
"The last, not a bond, but... blood," murmurs the man before he rolls his head back to look up at the sky. "Though I'm just as likely to fall into it as most."
"I'm going to need a cold, cold shower..."
"I did a little research, into your bloodline. Out of curiosity."
Cian hesitates for just a moment before pressing a soft kiss against Jasper's throat, and then another more heated one.
Another caught breath, but nothing yet trying to push the envelope too much. Fingers clinging to the man's sides. "Mmmm... what did you find in your libraries? I'd suspect the Defiant still have the knowledge I gave them a hundred some years ago. No idea what the Carthians may have gotten out of my line..."
"It's all about memory, yes?" Cian's hands creep under Jasper's shirt, his fingertips slightly cool against his bare skin. Teeth catch gently on the tender skin of Jasper's neck. Not enough to break skin - it's not even entirely clear whether he's got his fangs out, or not.
"Yes," gasps Jasper. "Blood is memory. Memory binds... binds us all." The man lets go of Cian so he can shrug off his coat, then reaches around to push his hands down the backside of the man's pants for each hand a cheek.
Cian stiffens and grips Jasper's arms the moment he tries. He gives a small jerk of his head back and forth, and his kisses pause.
"No thanks," he murmurs, still close enough for his lips to brush against Jasper's throat.
There's a whine from the Mekhet. "Then... stop sending go signals. It's not entirely fair to wind me so far up if I can't get you just as... much," murmurs Jasper even has his hands still.
"I have no plans to put my hands down your pants, or do anything further than this extended...making out." He says it as if it's not a phrase he's used to.
He trails kisses down Jasper's neck and back up again, stopping for a moment to look at the other Kindred straight on.
"If you would prefer I stop, say the word."
Jasper takes a moment before turning to wrestle him however pitifully to push Cian hopefully back against the wall where the door down into the hostel is. He's got a determined, near maddened look on his eyes. "My turn. Be explicit and state the limitations. Because I'm going to make you wish I'd have just fucked you with how badly you're going to want this."
"Well..." Cian breathes out as his back hits the wall. "I have no interest in your fucking me, to be quite honest. Especially not tonight. Nor any other sort of pleasuring in that regard. And no biting," he says with a soft laugh. "I reserve the right to put a stop to things I've forgotten, as well..." His hands make slow circles against Jasper's back, under his shirt, his fingernails dragging slightly against skin.
"Biting as in actual wounds or..." Jasper leans in, slowly presses his lips there, and lowers his fangs against the man's flesh in the daintiest pressure points he can, sucking that flesh against it, then dragging lower, careful not to break skin. A small kiss over it. "None of that?"
Cian sags against the wall with a slight moan, pulling Jasper against him. "No that - that's fine," he gasps.
"Just... fine?" whispers Jasper before he tries again, pushing Cian's arms up against the wall above their heads. And then he proceeds to do so again, this time lower...
There's a soft chuckle, low in Cian's throat. "Isn't it...abundantly clear that it's a fair bit better than fine?" He lets Jasper push his arms up, and tilts his head back, giving Jasper better access to his neck.
"I want to hear you ask to go back to my place," whispers Jasper in Cian's ear in the hottest breathy way he can. "So that you don't have to hold back every single groan and moan that I want to pull out of you."
"Do you live close? Will you be able to restrain yourself for that long?" Another breathy laugh.
"I'm very, very fast," assures Jasper. "Not that close, but..." He lets out a breath. "Something tells me when we wake up - actually, is there something or someone you'd like to eat?"
"Not particularly, no...why, were you going to make this a proper date and buy me dinner, first?" He gently tests his movement against Jasper's hands, clearly curious rather than wanting to escape it.
Jasper does double down on pressing him to the wall. "I'd considered it, yes. You prefer animals, yes? It's one of the ways that you maintain a connection to you-oh, I'm sorry. You may not have made that mental connection as of yet."
Cian's mouth opens slightly when Jasper presses him against the wall. "I - ah. I had not, you're correct. I suppose I'm learning quite a lot about myself, this evening..."
"Animals... do not like me, but I could arrange to have one brought for you," he says as he leans down, takes Cian's shirt in his mouth, and undoes the top button with teeth and tongue.
"Skillful." His mouth quirks up. "Do others in my position ever ask the other ways in which your mouth is skillful?"
"Of course," he says before opening another of those buttons. "Since you haven't asked, I'm guessing you prefer this. Or maybe you're considering my threat to your safety if I knew where your haven was versus your..." A third, and now the shirt is moved so he can drag fang across upper chest. "... desire to let me explore."
"I have my guesses, and assume they refer to things that I'm not interested in. Though do enlighten me, if I'm incorrect..." his voice trails off and he arches his back with a small shudder.
"Not interested in, or not ready for?" queries the man before guiding Cian's hands to Jasper's chest as if inviting him to be able to play there while fingers made quick work of the rest of the buttons. With clear deliberation, Jasper lowered to the man's nipple to lick testingly. If he didn't stop him, he'd use those same fangs to more heavily cross the man's pec and then more lightly on the sensitive tip.
Twice this week (at least?), that Jasper's seen top surgery scars, and Cian glances at Jasper's face, a flicker of worry crossing his features as he watches for a reaction. He barely reacts to his hands being moved, his fingers splayed across Jasper's chest.
Well now Jasper has a moment of inspection before he lowers even further down. The same attention and sensations applied yet lower, about as scar regions.
It's about then that Jasper drops to his knees, sliding down so he can kiss the other's navel. Eyes seek Cian's as he plants his tongue upon the plane of his stomach and licks up to tip of sternum.
"We were not a product for our time," whispers the worshipper on his knees before the other man. "Now? Now is our time. Won't you celebrate it with me?"
Cian's stomach flutters as goosebumps ripple across his skin in response to Jasper's tongue, but his hands grip Jasper's shoulders to pull him back upward."Not...not ready enough to be interested." He's resting his head back against the wall, looking slightly upward, his breathing a little shallow.
"Not what I'm asking," murmurs Jasper as he makes his way back up slowly. "You didn't even let me play in the tender places." Warm hands sliding up before cupping the sailor's face to pull into a lingering kiss. "Mmmm... Now, where we we?"
"You were suggesting we return to your haven..." Cian slides his hands underneath Jasper's shirt, now that they've returned to familiar and comfortable ground. "And there is...a certain amount of play and exploration I am absolutely comfortable with."
"Good. Because my favorite vein is right alongside the inner thigh, and I've found most are very sensitive around there," murmurs Jasper.
"Oh Christ..." he breathes. "That's...a step or two farther than I...think I can stand...tonight..."
"Really? Because I've been taught by a person back in the swingin' sixties that the feet are in fact the way to really get someone going. Reflexology, they called it, I believe."
"..." Cian squints at Jasper, and starts laughing half a second later. "Missed that particular bit, I think."
"I could try it, if you'd like. Or... perhaps tonight we should part ways, lest you be too tempted to change your mind?" teases Jasper.
"...No thank you. To both of those suggestions." Cian's hands slide around to Jasper's chest, and he smirks. "I have to say I've become increasingly curious as to your living space..."
"You'll find that it's much less than you expect. That is, until I find one more permanent." He grabbed the man's hips to pull him flush with him again. "A hotel suite where none interrupt me."
"Ah. In that case..." He teases his lips against Jasper's, pulling away with a grin if the other man tries to reciprocate, "Shall we adjourn there?"
"Let's," says Jasper.
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