▽ scarred memories {jameson}

[Mora]

Scripting was tedious

She had done it for several weeks now, the source codes Judas and Jameson had collected for her helped. She was able to put the software together to make different files – files she was creating for Jameson, because Mora thought that everyone should have a set of scripts just in case. It was a weird thought but it was Mora’s she was an unusual creature. The thick black eyelashes fluttered as she pushed herself away from the computer in the bedroom of the Crypt. Having seen enough of code for one night.

She headed into the main area bare feet padding against the stone flooring. The ritual alter seemed empty. The crypt itself was empty tonight. She knew there was a raid going on somewhere in the city, she assumed the family was there. Mora didn’t have time to go to raids, not anymore. She was usually so bogged down by her paperwork for her four businesses, or hacking – sometimes even ritualling herself. When Judas wasn’t around. He hogged the ******** thing. She still loved him regardless of his hoarding the alter thing.

Mora had a book in hand, one of the many books she had brought over here when she moved with Judas – her books were piled in a corner. It was a pretty big pile, some Anne Rice. (Ironic?) The classics. Even a first edition of Little Women. She smiled as she opened her book. It was Petals on the Wind. One of Mora’s favourites – though it always made her cry, the story was just so sad. She sat herself down on her beanbag – she had brought it over from her Beta apartment. She began to read. She lost herself then, reading the words – following the story until she didn’t know how long had passed, as she lifted her head up she noticed there was still silence, the raid must still be going.

She expected Judas not to come home for a few days, same with the rest of the family. Her moss orbs fluttered closed then, as she began to snooze against the comfort of the beanbag. She’d nap, just for a little while before she continued to read some more.

[Jameson Dade]

He like. Really wanted cookies and cream, cookie dough ice cream.

Like.

Really.

The idea to rob a grocery store had not been well planned out, probably because he had been high at the time, and was breaking his number one rule of breaking and entering – which was that he wouldn’t do so whilst under the influence. But he wasn’t very good at following rules, especially ones that he set for himself, that weren’t enforced by anyone else. So after he had drained some druggie dry, and untangled their limbs from what had amounted to a lethal cuddle session, he’d gotten all geared up.

Because apparently he couldn’t just go in with a backpack and jack the tub of ice cream.

His stealth outfit consisted of several pieces including a cat suit, a hoodie, a utility belt, and even mechanized cuffs that pushed the weapons Olive had given to him into his hands for ease of use. It had taken him months to put the damned thing together, but once it had been completed – it was his pride and joy.
Fast forward to him slowly creeping along the top of the frozen aisle on top of the refrigerated unit. It would have been sneaky, except the store was full of customers all milling about with their carts. Several of them had taken note of him, but he was in the zone. When he got to the ice cream section, he turned. There was some sort of water pipe just ahead of him by a few feet. No problem. He would gracefully leap from the edge of the unit, grasp it, swing himself upside down on the pipe structure, attach his trusty rope, and lower himself much a one might have expected from Tom Cruise in a movie.

But, as you can imagine, that ain’t what happened.

He leapt for sure, and fell short by an inch or so. Ended up face planting the ground. Hard. He came up with a bloody nose, and it was at that exact moment he noticed the people. ****. When had they appeared!? MAGIC. He pulled open a glass door, grabbed his ice cream and then sprinted the **** out of there as fast as his feet could carry him. He made it to the bathroom before using his tome. He appeared in the crypt a second later with a somewhat frazzled expression.

Was that Mora?

“Morama.” He said by way of greeting before he plopped down on the nearest available seat (which might not have been a seat at all). It was the altar. He then pried the lid off and realized he had no spoon. Oh well. Fingers dug into the substance as he watched his sire read. He never had been terribly good at that, but he was curious. Eyes on her. Very intent on her. Staring as he mindlessly stuffed fingerfuls of his ice cream into his mouth. “Whassat?”

[Mora]

Moss orbs flickered open to attention. She dragged her hues to the ritual alter to find it’s emptiness still. The woman missed Judas, she missed the sight of him. She closed her eyes once more, her mind reaching out to his. She liked to talk into his head sometimes. To let him know how she felt – she didn’t say it all the time, to make the man uncomfortable but she’d say it randomly. He would return the feelings and she would be happy, and it was enough for the telepath.

”I love you, have fun raiding my love.”

The words carried along the telepathic waves – hitting its destination as she opened her eyes again to this time come face to face with Jameson. She smiled at him, startled for a moment. How soundlessly he had appeared – even to see him sitting a top the ritual alter it was a lovely surprise. She nodded her head at him, pushing tendrils of loose golden hair back behind her ears as she set the book aside that was within her lap.

“Jammy.” She said. Her moss orbs were looking straight into the frazzled expression. Though, she was more concerned by the fingers that plunged into the ice cream. The way he ate it without a spoon, if anyone else saw him now – they would have thought he was raised on a barn, or worse – the streets. She shook her head, giving off a light laugh as she pushed herself out of the bean bag and headed over to the bedroom. Mora had various things there – a spoon was one of them, don’t ever ask Mora why she had a random spoon in the bedroom. She had no idea herself. She headed back into the main area and offered it to the Allurist.

“Spoons, you use these to eat things with – mostly-“ She looked to the tub that was nestled in his arms like a new born babe. “-to eat ice cream with.” She said, as she headed back over to the bean bag and sat herself down in it. The bag held her weight as she sank into it. Her arms rested against the edges. The book being placed back onto her lap.

“Petals on the wind.” She said in his response to ‘What’s that.’ “Story about a children who were abandoned in the attic of a rich family, spending over a year locked away waiting for the grandfather to die, so they could inherit the house, but the children locked away in the attic were a secret. It’s a passionate story, granted it’s a little messed up, but there is a plotline to it.” She shrugged her shoulders, when she read the story – she felt like her childhood wasn’t all that bad in comparison.

[Jameson Dade]

He eyed her curiously when she mentioned he normally should have eaten the ice cream with a spoon. He knew that. Really. The problem was that he’d forgotten to nab one, and he doubted there would have been one in a crypt. By that point, the nose bleed had stopped itself, and the blood soaked into his skin to reveal nothing but pale, smooth flesh. He stared at the shiny, curved surface she held in front of him for a moment as if unsure whether or not he should actually take it. His digits were already cold, moist, and sticky. Seemed almost pointless, but he supposed if it made her feel better about the situation, he was more than fine with modifying his behavior. So he took the thing and dipped it in so he could shave across the distorted surface he had created and scoop away some of the delicate treat

He had changed a lot since the two of them had met, though it was more physical than anything. There were the more obvious and less subtle changes to mentality, but that was just Jameson going full circle. Mora had met him when he’d been six months sober. In truth, that hadn’t really been him, not entirely. Back on whatever he could get his hands on, another aspect of his personality came to the surface. Not that he’d ever really hidden it. His appearance had slowly modified. Dull hair had gradually grown more lustrous with each passing day, and the track marks on his arms had all but disappeared. His skin had totally smoothed over, blemishes fleeing from sight. Heavy bags under his eyes had dissipated and he was left with those sharp, masculine, faeish features. His eyes were clear.

He knew the story. It was a sequel to Flowers in the Attic. Where Jameson had never been a big reader, his mother was. She had enjoyed the very same series, and generally anything by V. C. Andrews or her shadow writer. He knew the basic plot, his mother had found the story romantic. Messed up. Did that refer to the incest or the child abuse, or maybe the terrible parenting, tragic death? Maybe it was some kind of combination of those. Jameson couldn’t really handle anything about neglected kids, or hurting children in general. When he was high? Well that was a different story. Not that he went out of his way to hurt anyone, but he became careless when he was abusing something.

He was coming down from it though and he placed his tub of ice cream to one side. His legs dragged up so he could sit ‘Indian’ style, beginning to clean his fingers off by lapping over them. “That stuff drives me mad, can’t handle family hurting each other. I grew up with that in one form or another.” Once his digits were no longer quite so sticky, he tugged the zip of his hoodie so he could dry them on the inner panel.

[Mora]

She watched him closely with forest green hues, placing the book down on the stone floor beside her so it wouldn’t distract her, because she could at times be easily distracted. Golden hair caressed her cheekbones as she watched the man scrape at the ice cream with the spoon and found herself chuckling, the chest rumbled. Something she did often. It seemed for Mora she had a lot of things to be happy about. The family was small, but close. She had sired Jameson, and he had fit in nicely. Unlike Lucid, the man who had vanished from her radar. Most vanished on Mora. Even Olive had vanished, she didn’t blame that one. Mora had it coming to her she had abandoned Olive once before for months. Raked with guilt for Dwayne. She shook her head, shrugging off the negative feelings. She couldn’t let them creep in not now at least.

He began to lick at his fingers then, his tongue scraped across the flesh as she simply watched. She didn’t say anything. What comment could she say to him when he did this. Mora had met Jameson during a hungry moment. Mora is usually so composed when it came to her hunger, but she had been suffering from the death of her thrall. Killed the woman in cold blood. A thirst had caught in her throat, wanting her drink from everyone – even Jameson. She had been taught from her alcoholic of a mother not to play with her food when at the dinner table and that was exactly what she had done with him when she chased him down into an alleyway and drained him dry – and when she finally restored her senses she given him immortal life. There wasn’t much choice in it; she couldn’t stand seeing anyone human die at her hands, vampires? They were a different story.

A tongue escaped through her mouth and began to lick at her dry lips, a single fleeting thought passed her mind. She had forgotten what food tasted like. She wanted to know what the ice cream tasted like. It had been over two years since she had died and become [/i]this.[/i] Forever young, unable to taste food. Jameson was lucky, he had been sired to the Allurist path and had the ability to still eat food, Mora just had the added bonus of being crazy – a trait she hid well from others, unless she was alone with Judas and could let her walls drop. The woman was close to the vathia, fingertips brushed against that barrier.

“What does it taste like?” She pointed to the tub of ice cream that had been discarded for a moment as Jameson shifted his position on the alter so he was sitting cross in an Indian like style. “I havn’t had food in a long time, I miss the sensation of chewing, without throwing up.” She laughed, moss orbs glazed over in thought before turning her attention to his other words, she nodded her head in a sad understanding her mother had been the same, an alcoholic and an aggressive one at that, hitting Mora – or Morghan as she had called herself then over the head several times. She was abusive, abusive enough to make Mora move here, to Harper Rock to escape her.

“I’m sorry about your family Jammy. We are in the same boat. My mother was the same, abusive *****.” She failed to mention that the woman had died at Mora’s fingertips back when she was a fledgling vampire. The woman had hit her again, causing Mora to flip. Mora had killed the woman in cold blood, no regret – no remorse, even now she sometimes thought she could her mother’s voice taunting her. Another reason she claimed herself to be crazy at times. "Do you want to talk about it?" She asked, letting the question hang there in the air. If he didn't want to talk about it, that was fine by her. Mora wanted to get to know him, especially since they were going to be stuck with each other for a long time.

[Jameson Dade]

What did it taste like? He licked over his lips and let the components settle over his tongue, even as he leaned back and let his palms rest against the altar. His legs drew up onto the flat surface so that he could rest his shoes there, his knees pointing up to the ceiling even as his head tipped back, the long strands of his golden hair dangling, stroking over his upper back, his shoulders. Angled like he was, the tips very nearly touched the surface of the ritual stand before he just slumped to lie flat on it. He could have been in his own world right then. “Sweet and cold. The cookies taste of chocolate. The dough is chewey, so there are a few different textures.” The words are delivered lifelessly, without the rapt attention and obsessive nature he’d displayed only a moment before.

He twisted then, rolling onto his front, which required his nudging the ice cream carton out of the way. Elbows came to rest on the surface, and palms formed a place for his chin to rest. There. Finally comfortable. Stone was not exactly the plushest thing to relax against, but he had been bound and determined to find a spot that suited him. And he had found it. “Gum?” He asked a second later, looking up from where his attention had diverted to the ground for a moment. His hair was slowly growing messier by the moment, and it obscured his view just a little bit, like a veil of sunshine. “Not sure how that works, but I wager you could have bubble gum or something like that if you wanna chew.” No, it wasn’t the same, but he wanted to offer a reasonable solution that didn’t involve turning someone into a pin cushion.

Unless that was what she was into. No judgment.

“I wouldn’t really call my mum abusive. Not in the violent, angry, throw things and scream sense.” His father had been like that occasionally. Rarely. His mother’s crimes had gone the entirely opposite direction. To hurt him, she would have had to have been invested in him on more than a surface level. “What I mean is she was more likely to forget I existed than anything else. For days or weeks at a time. Then she would have these days where she was just the very best mother. She loved me, and she wanted to get me everything I ever needed or wanted. She was proud of me and wanted me to be happy…then she’d go to sleep and I’d stop existing all over again.” It had taken him a long time to realize that despite her telling him that she loved him – she hadn’t really.

That had just been what she had been expected to say, and the woman who had birthed him, had done very little more than pay lip service. Of course it went far deeper than that. The two of them had good memories. They had been family, after all, and there had been many adventures. Like the time they’d broken into the zoo after hours, and the first time he’d gotten him drunk. He’d made out with a guy right in front of her and she’d cheered it on like they were girlfriends at a bachelor party. He’d needed her, and she’d only ever wanted him when it was easy or convenient. When he could be part of the party and not someone she actually had to take care of.

But it had hurt. It had hurt him to know that he wasn’t loved, nor wanted. His father had been more direct about it. His mother had just been his enabler, and that had been its own special brand of pain. Being given drugs in place of nurturing.

[Mora]

She listened watching as he tipped his head back and tried to explain to her the taste of ice cream. She rolled her pink tongue across her pale, cracked lips trying to imagine the taste in her own mouth but it only produced saliva. She nodded her head then, almost sadly. She would never enjoy the taste of Ice cream again; she would never taste pizza, cold Chinese. A small sigh escaped her lips as fidgeted on the bean bag thinking about food it almost made her stomach growl – if her stomach could growl. The hunger stirring inside her, but it was not a hunger for edible food, it was a hunger for blood. It was the only thing she could ingest that didn’t result in her throwing up. She had, had her fair share of throwing up throughout the three years of being a vampire.

“Never tried gum.” She said with a small cant of her head. Thinking about it. “Well, I have, but when I was human.” She gave a light shrug of her shoulders. Golden hair bouncing on her shoulders, dragging the strands against the flesh of her skin. Mora listened though, listening to the way he spoke about his mother, she could hear the pain in his voice as he remembered it all. She stood from where she was sat on the beanbag and slowly made her way over to Jameson, wanting to hug him. The only form of comfort she could give him.

“I am so sorry.” She said. Wrapping her arms around the man, drawing him into her own cold arms to hug him – in a comforting manner, before withdrawing. “You remember the good memories, when she did remember you yes?” Those were the things he had to think about and remember. He needed to, unless he wanted to go to them and patch things up. It was what she tried to do when she was turned, but for her that had gone sour resulting in her mother’s death at her own hand. She huffed silently.

“Family is family.” She told him. “You have me, if that counts?”

[Jameson Dade]

Arms curled around him and he blinked. It wasn't that he didn't like affection. On the contrary, he was known to love touch for the sake of touch. He liked the exchange of warmth, and found the physical reminder that he was not alone to be deeply comforting. However, he was just coming down from a high, and it had been somewhat unexpected, juxtaposed against the nature of the conversation. He hadn'td been searching for sympathy. If anything, the both of them had poor childhood. Everyone had a sob story, as the saying went. So he hadn't anticipated that Mora would move to try and make him feel better about it. He didn't think there was really a way he could, because it was just a fact of life and he had stopped really outwardly hurting over it years before.

So after his moment of hesitation, brought on by surprise rather than discomfort, he let his own thin arms wind about the woman's middle to tug her into a hug, tightening his grip until she was pressed flush to his form. There was no warmth there. But that was the nature of the dead, and dead things. They were cold to the touch. When she pulled away, there was curiosity, or maybe confusion his features. "You don't have to apologize. You're not the master of my life. You didn't do anything bad to me." Which was true. His life, for lack of a better word, had gotten significantly better after Mora had stepped into it. She had offered him the key to everything he had become.

He certainly felt no ill will towards her.

"So don't go saying sorry for something unless you do it." Because people, in general, did enough bad in their lives without needing to take up responsibility for the things they didn't. He couldn't speak to that on Mora's account, of course. He didn't really know her all that well save for that she had been very good to him. Her skeletons were hers though, was the point. She didn't have to deal with his. Though there was some merit to them working through those together. But. Only if it was a reciprocal process. Which, of course, led to the woman's last sentiment. Family is family.

"Thanks though. I agree. I think we pick our families when we're adults, and I seem to have stumbled onto a pretty good one." Though he didn't really know most of the members. The only Daradasi he had any regular contact with was Mora. Judas seemed alright though, from what Jameson had seen of him in the Crypt and when they were raiding skyscrapers. There were a few others, but there had been no real effort there on either side to get closer. He didn't begrudge this, people had their own lives. He had his own. THe important thing was that they came together when it was necessary to take care of each other.

"And you have me. Do you view the Daradasi as your family then? Like blood brothers and sisters, and the like?"

[Mora]

Mora hugged him because she wanted to hug him, the only form of comfort she could give to the man whom she considered a son to her. Vampires often looked down on other vampires that viewed their childer as children, and son’s and daughters. Mora was different, everyone she had sired hit her in a different way. They were her responsibility. They were hers to look after. Granted they were adults, and Mora could not push her own thoughts and opinions onto the other – they made they own decisions, and their own mistakes just like she had. Mora could only guide, and offer feedback. No matter how you looked at it, that was a parents job. There was no two ways about it, in her eyes at least.

It wasn’t a surprise when the man slid his own arms around Mora and returned the hug. She welcomed it. It felt like a proper bear hug, the man brought the telepath closer so her head rested against his chest as she just rested there. “I am not the master, you are right. You are the master of your own life.” She said into his shirt as she slowly withdrew from the man, patting his knee affectionately.

“I killed a fair few people in my time.” She said. “There was no way I could undo the things I had done.” She shrugged. “I was a newly turned fledgling, I was being guided by Elizabeth. One of the elders in the vampire community. My sire…” She paused, not sure how to describe it. She didn’t. The frog caught in her throat. “Let’s just say. My sire wasn’t around much. I don’t hold it against him, he’s a busy man.” He had a faction of bounty hunters to run within that time, two thousand and twelve had been an eye opener for her. “My mother had been one them, she.. attacked me with a bottle, in a drunken state over and over again. Knocked me unconscious, not long after I was turned. I tried to make amends.” She rubbed at her jaw, her fingers shaking as she recalled the suppressed memory. “I woke back up angry, confused and killed her. Drained her dry. I went crazy, killed plenty of people after that, until Elizabeth flew out to New York to find me, to calm me.”

She shook her head again this time, not speaking anymore on it. It was a hard memory, and a memory she didn’t speak of often. Only on rare occasions, and this was one of them. Her teary eyes dragged back up to look at Jameson. She elbowed his knee though, with a smile creeping through her lips. “The family is pretty great, even if it is quiet.” She quite liked the quiet, the quiet was always better than drama. She’d take quiet any day of the week.

“You have me.” She told him, with another light elbow – playful even as she smiled at the man. “Yes, I view Daradasi as my family. Those I created, and those adopted as well. I feel a need to protect and look after. Judas, I love him to pieces, and his side of the family. The Reids. I view them as my family as well. We are one big happy family, in my opinion. I love them all.” Mora was being a girl, and mushy. Naughty Mora.

[Jameson Dade]

That was as true as anything Jameson had ever heard. Most people would have considered him pathetic for his addictive need for acrid smoke or the needle. Most would have looked down on him for his life of crime, for what many might have considered bleak (at best) morality. One of the things that rehab had taught him was that he needed to accept his sickness as part of himself, because that was the only way he could really face it. It was a battle he had lost, a battle that had left his body destroyed, his mind tainted, and him ultimately dead. He had fallen back into old habits shortly after being turned, but it didn't impact him the way it had only a year before. He didn't feel regret, or self-loathing for it because every time he did something wrong, he was reminded that it was in his hands. Always in his hands. His life, his choices.

There was something liberating about that: celebrating the things that made him terrible along with the things that society would have deemed 'redeeming qualities'.

"Everyone loses control sometimes." He replied in a low tone, realizing that his high was slowly wearing off. He didn't feel it like a hunger in the normal fashion, the need to replenish the toxins in his veins. Maybe because he was distracted by something else, some other facet of the world that begged for his attention. Mora. She had been good to him since she had killed him. She struggled to appear as a strong woman, to offer kindness where many might have delivered strife. She was the head of a family, a single unit amongst hundreds that made up the vampiric underground in Harper Rock. It made him curious how often she was able to relax, or how often she was able to share how she felt about her past, about what was happening with her life.

That was one thing that Jameson took for granted. He had Ozymandias. A man paid to listen to him.

"I mean I accidentally killed a guy a little while ago. I felt really conflicted about it, you know? Like I knew I was supposed to feel guilty but I didn't really. Like I didn't feel good about it or empowered or any of that ****, but he was just a guy and if it's him or me, I'm going to pick me. Still, I wonder about his family, if he had any. I wonder what right I had to take their son or father, or husband away from them. And then I usually get high." He was quiet then for a long moment. Coming to grips with being a vampire, the transition into something not human but previously so was not an easy one.

Being charged with bringing someone over to that life had to be doubly difficult, because turning a human into something that had the potential to be a monster had to be a hard choice didn't it? Maybe it was ultimately a selfish one, the desire to have more creatures with clouded thoughts and predatory drives in the world. Mob mentality. The more people there were doing the wrong thing, the more okay it became. If there were hundreds of vampires killing and hurting, then that was the norm, that was accepted. Did people really change when they were turned though?

Jameson felt different in certain ways. But he didn't feel like he was someone else entirely. So, if he'd had the strength when he was human, did that mean he would have taken a life just as easily? Whatever the case, Jay was going to be careful in taking that particular step. The last thing he wanted was the crushing weight of responsibility that came with possibly making the next Gein, or Manson, or Dahmer.

Maybe by that point, he wouldn't care.

"We are in a crypt talking about death and dying, and all of that dark stuff. We should get out and do something living. That is, of course, if breathing fresh air will not kill you." He teased lightly leaning towards the woman to nudge with his own elbow.