Path of the Vampire forum

Posted: **07 May 2019, 13:03**

There was a brief second, a slight pause where Flynn could only stare in disbelief as Azraeth exited the car after leaving a quick peck of a kiss. The bags all still situated nearly in the trunk and the vampire just...walked away, even going so far as shoot a grin over his shoulder, because dammit the man knew exactly what he was doing. “Oh, sure, no problem…” the Paladin muttered to himself, and not for the first time in their relationship, he fought down the sudden desire to stick his tongue out at his partner’s back. For a moment, he thought about calling out to him, playing the ‘but, you’re stronger than me’ card, but it would have been a wasted effort, he knew. Besides, Az was the one going to do the social interaction that came with this little getaway, and god, how Flynn hated awkward small talk over simple things. There weren’t that many bags, anyway, and he was perfectly capable. It was the principle of the thing, really.

It wasn’t until the other man had reached the door that the human was spurned into actions, extracting himself from the car with a soft groan as his muscles loosened after being in the same seated position for an extended period of time. He moved to the back of the car and popped the trunk, situating the bags in his arms in such a way that he would only require one trip. With one of the bags then tucked under his arm, he closed the trunk with an elbow and meandered his way up the walkway to reach the front door just as an older woman was exiting through another door after what, Flynn assumed, was conducting the necessary business with Azraeth. Taking in his surroundings, he wandered toward the vampire’s side and without a glance in his direction acknowledged his partner. “You should know...that for a second, I thought about walking in here and throwing one of these bags at you...” Only then did he turn his head and grin in his direction, his voice lowering. “It’s not as interesting as some of the things you’ve thrown at me...but, it almost seemed appropriate after you left me with all of them.”

The Paladin quirked an eyebrow, as if challenging Azraeth for an answer or explanation for being left with ‘bag duty,’ but the lack of underlying annoyance only managed to make it look suggestive. Flynn knew very little about the overall plans for trip here other than the fact that Az spent a pretty penny, but knew enough to know that their room was on the second floor and had a balcony overlooking the lake. And with that information in hand, he gestured toward the stairs with his head and began to head off for the sake of dropping the bags that weren’t neary as heavy as he might have wanted to pretend. The property itself was fairly large, but easy enough to navigate and he managed to find the room with little trouble. It was spacious and clean, the glass balcony doors allowing the moonlight to creep across the bed, illuminating the obviously homemade quilt laid out across it. There was a dresser and walk-in closest available for their use and an attached bathroom, towels ready on the counter.

Flynn’s attention was immediately captured by the scene just outside the balcony doors, his expression twisting into a mixture of surprise and confusion. “Strange…” he muttered under his breath, losing awareness of everything else. With mechanical movements, he dropped the bags to the bed and pushed the door open, stepping out into the cool night air. He hummed once, completely lost to his own thoughts, his head tipping in silent contemplation. Something about the pond below, the dock stretching out into the depths and the row boat anchored nearby...it was familiar. The uneasy sort of familiar that left one’s stomach twisting into knots of anxiety, but with no clear explanation as to why.

Teeth dug into his lower lip, the sensation of deja vu growing stronger by the second. He knew perfectly well that he had never been there before, but why else would he feel as though he had? There was something, some kind of memory or thought, sitting at the very edges of Flynn’s consciousness, just out of reach. A feeling of tension and irritation, a trickle of fear that he just didn’t understand, love and contentment wrapped together, and heat. A warmth across his skin as though the sun were shining overhead without enough strength to cause burns.

Whipping around, his eyes sought out the other man, as if he had answers that Flynn himself lacked. “I...I feel like I’ve been here before…” It ultimately lacked a question, because Az would have no idea if he'd ever been.. With a very visible shake of his head, as if the action alone could clear away the sudden unease, he pushed onward "So, what was it that you had planned for this little getaway, anyway?"

Posted: **11 Jun 2019, 15:32**

Az ensured that the outline of the box in his pocket was not excessively visible. He had known early on in the planning stages of their little vacation that he needed to have the item shipped, because the alternative was to risk Flynn finding it and ruining the surprise. This was an especially prominent threat given that there was really no safe place to stash it aside aside from in one of the ritual lockers Azraeth kept, but then there would have been danger of something gross getting onto it like slimy zombie ears, or a kitten which, at one point, had been a live (Az had learned it was best to buy them fresh rather than try to store them). In either case though, he suspected Flynn wouldn’t have appreciated disgusting things getting all over the package. The two of them dealt with their fair share of stomach turning content in Harper Rock proper, and Az just...wanted a way to escape from it. He wanted to get away from the city where monsters never slept, and get away from the soldiers, and the buildings which had once housed thriving families and businesses left vacant. There were places in Harper Rock he had known since having moved there for university, which no longer existed. That was the march of life, of course, always pushing forward without end or cease. He wanted them to taste the unfamiliar and strange sweet fruit of a land which was not encumbered by the experience of the dead.

”Just remember, you can always count on me to give you a head.” He said, which sounded like it should have been flirting, except he legitimately meant a head. It was one of their longest running gags. Their meet cute had not really been all that charming. Longslade had been a facility where the vampire cure was kept under lock and key by researchers who wanted to use it for what many felt was less than noble purposes. Flynn and Az had met because there had been a call put out on their faction CrowNet asking for help in dealing with the problem. It was almost entirely by chance that they had stumbled into that fight together. They had saved each other in more ways than one, that day. Or at least, Flynn had saved Az. There was this sense of nostalgia associated with those thoughts, and the reminder that the past was always behind and never ahead. The group to which they had belonged, they were no longer members. Another reminder perhaps that things were always changing, and that there were a few good things which one had to cling to along the way to make the bad worthwhile.

Undoubtedly, there were a few good things Az had gotten from the Vooodoo Dragons. He’d gotten Flynn. He’d found a sister. He had to reckon that he was lucky by most metrics. But would the darkness always be there to greet them when they turned to face it?

The trip up the stairs was a short one, and Az actually did nab his own bag from the ones he’d asked for his partner to carry up, insistent on helping now that the package was fully secure. The items were dumped on the bed, and Az found himself appreciating the room itself. The bed was sizable, easily a king size. There was artwork all over the walls which gave it a sense of classical, somewhat rustic asymmetry. There were lamps of different designs on bedside tables of different varieties. Nothing in the room really matched, which added to its character by making it feel as if it were a place people did not just go to visit, but in which they lived for a short time. He decided that the whole place was perfect. Especially the bathroom with its very large clawfoot tub, in which he intended to sink himself with salts, oils and bubbles until he felt like his muscles were jelly and his skin was smooth and soft. That was a matter for later in the evening though.

Once he’d finished assessing the quarters, he returned to the main room to find Flynn standing out on the large balcony deck which had an excellent view of the lake. He could tell there was a shift in the air, though he could not say precisely what had caused it or if it was a bad or a good thing. ”Deja vu?” He asked curiously as he drew closer to Flynn. He had learned that such things should never be dismissed over-quickly. In a world of vampires, with ancient beings that could probe the minds of anyone to implant dreams of necromantic metamorphosis, it was best to give a moment to the thoughts which repeated and recurred. They could be omens. Or they could be clues to something greater. His hands laid upon the other man’s chest to slowly drag upwards and away from a heart to slide over shoulders, which he gripped and squeezed. ”Maybe it will make itself clearer with time.” He offered, when he realized that explaining the unexplainable was perhaps an unfair task.

He continued forward a step, and pressed his chest into Flynn’s, so that he could wrap the man in a hug. Of course, everyone knew that Az usually stuck close to his partner. Another one of their ongoing gags was that the Paladin required Azraeth there, attached to his side lest his not being there throw off the other man’s balance. But it was different at the bed and breakfast. This new place. It felt a bit like they had been prisoners in the same cell for a long time and were embracing once they’d earned their freedom. He hugged his lover tightly to his chest, his eyes pressing shut after a moment. He held him longer than necessary, because it did feel like freedom. Like neither of them had responsibilities to which they would inevitably have to return. ”Tonight the plan is for us to relax. I thought we might have a bath, watch a romantic movie. Tomorrow night there is an...event. I won’t give you details, but let’s just say I want us to guide our ship towards the light.” He said with a certain cryptic charm.

He grinned with characteristic hugeness and then pulled away with a peck at the corner of the mouth so that he could begin toing his shoes off of his feet, only to pause before an old radio. He turned the dials on it to bring it to life, and then to find a channel which played music softly. There was a certain scratchy quality to the audio, but Az was immediately charmed by it. ”Mostly I just want us to have this time to ourselves. Devices go in a dresser drawer, and we’re only allowed to check them once per night. Just once.” He said as he half turned, that grin having reached his serpentine eyes.

Posted: **14 Jun 2019, 13:06**

The mind was a brilliant thing. With so much to be responsible for going right, it was a wonder that more did not go wrong when it came to the ‘human experience.’ It was capable of incredible feats of memory, but it was also capable of the opposite. It could lock away some of the worst horrors and traumas that a person had ever faced, protecting them from the vulnerability that came from a deep-seeded pain. But with those moments so heavily protected came the inevitable dissonance when faced with a situation that linked directly to that prior experience. A storm of emotions could play out in the span of seconds while the individual in question could only stumble for stable footing as they were swept away, completely unaware of just what it was that led to their reaction. The repression of those memories becomes both a blessing and a curse, as it’s easier to forget, but harder to have to question ‘why?’

That was a little how Flynn felt just then, standing on that balcony overlooking the lake with a docked rowboat. Except that what he couldn’t remember had never been a reality, but merely something akin to a dream. A very vivid dream. If dreaming was what one did while comatose, anyway. Still, the memory of it rested just beyond the reach of his consciousness, enough to cause that creeping unease without any explanation. So when Azraeth gave the sensation a name, the only thing the paladin could think to do was shrug with a soft muttering of, ”Something like that,” It was a helpless sort of reaction to the implied question when he lacked the answers. It further perpetuated that feeling of unease, bringing it back to the forefront despite his attempt to force it back so that future Flynn would puzzle it all out when they weren’t on vacation.

Thankfully, Azraeth had always been unintentionally good at grounding him and his touch was immediately soothing to that anxious part of himself that insisted her knew more of this place than he could recall. Once upon a time, the vampire had had a sort of dual effect on Flynn. His very presence was enough to cause that anticipatory reaction that came from being a paladin, and yet his being close managed to keep some of those darker thoughts at bay. While it had never been the intention in his relationship with Az, it was a constant reminder of the very thing that drove him to join Voodoo Dragons in the first place; the world doesn’t exist in only black and white. Being a paladin was not all that defined him, just as being a vampire not all that made up his partner. They existed on a level that most of their kind dare not touch, crossing the lines that ought to be left alone. But they made it work, and Flynn was infinitely grateful that he had the man in his life. For all that he did and did not do, for being there in a moment of vulnerability that the human couldn’t put a name to.

The hug itself wasn’t unexpected, but the strength and intensity of it was as he wrapped himself around Azreath, arms tightening around his back as if afraid he might disappear. Flynn found himself blinking in confusion, a question poised on his lips to check that everything was okay. Except that it seemed like a moment he’d rather not disturb, something that his partner needed for whatever reason that might have been and so he let the concern fade for the sake of simply soaking in the mere comfort of having Az close and of providing the same to him. And that was essentially what the whole point of this trip was. To get out of Harper Rock where monsters really did go bump in the night and where death was about as common as the cold. For once, they were surrounded by nothing by the calm peacefulness of a location that did not live on eggshells and it showed in the quiet call of crickets from the balcony. There were no sirens, no gunshots, no yelling or fighting in the streets. It was just the two of them.

”An...event…tomorrow night,” he repeated as Azraeth moved to pull away, choosing not to immediately let go, instead allowing his hands trail over the man’s back and across ribs until finally falling to his side. Taking a step to the side, his shoulder pressed against the balcony entryway with a small half-smile as he merely watched Az play with the radio. He could have pressed for more, a better idea of just he’d be walking into, but if there was one thing his vampire seemed to enjoy it was any form of surprise factor to the things that he did for and/or with Flynn. The fact this vacation itself was a part of the previous series of seven days worth of surprises, it seemed safe to assume that this...event...would be nothing short of the same.

Music softly filled the space and Flynn pushed off from the doorframe, closing the distance between himself and Azraeth. ”Just once, hm?” he asked, his chin lowering to the other man’s shoulder as he pressed against his back, one arm wrapping across a chest until his hand came to rest on the opposite shoulder. ”Seeing as the person I would expect to try and reach me the most happens to be in this room, I won’t argue that.” Digging his phone from his pocket, he held it out in front of Az, palm open with screen facing them both. Pressing the power button so that the lock screen came to life, he hummed at the lack of the notifications, that smirk taking over without his conscious knowledge. ”Would you look at that? Nothing…” he teased, pressing a kiss against a pale cheek before backing up towards one of the small bedside tables to open the drawer and dropping the phone there to stay.

Hand now free of his own device, he held it out, fingers wiggling in Azraeth’s direction. ”One last check, then, because there is apparently a bath and movie waiting.”

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