The Return [Jesse Fforde]

[Axel Rosen]

It’s been a couple days now since he’s been back, and though his sire has come to give him some blood heals due to attacks from Nix (a person he’s not really in the mood to talk about), there hasn’t really been any other conversations. Not that he doesn’t appreciate the blood heals, or the help from Micah (another person that he should get in contact with and thank), but Axel would kind of enjoy a conversation with his sire. He’s feeling a bit sick without being near him, sure that one short dose was nice to have but it’s not like it’d been in the past. There have been his life choices haunting him the times before that. Axel, he thinks, have done such a good job at masking his self-hate or whatever it is. He wants to be over it.

Pulling his phone from his pocket, his sire is not a fan of having people in his head, even though Axel enjoys the simplicity of it. Though it turns out that most vampires in the city aren’t really into having their thoughts invaded by another voice, but because he can’t read memories it’s not like he’s up there going through everything they are thinking about or have ever done. This is because he could care less about the personal lives of other, which probably attributes to why he hasn’t developed the power to poke about anyway.

Dialling the number he leans up against the wall, eyes of black and no pupils from recently waking up. Having not fed yet makes it an issue. His sire may not answer, but then he could constitute invading the mind right? After a denied phone call? Probably pestering his sire isn’t the best option that he could take. Axel waits patiently, scanning around the room, deciding that he might as well proceed on to Larch Court. There may be a pretty decent chance that will be the place that the two of them will be talking or hanging out.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse’s life could not possibly be called dull. He may have eternity now, but sometimes he doesn’t think there’s enough time in a night to get everything done that he wants to do. Generally, these days, he wants to spend all his time with Grey. However, he also likes to spend his time with the others in his bloodline—as well as those in his adopted faction and family. Besides the social nature of life, there’s the different events that Tytonidae holds, or that Andras holds. There’s hunts, there’s training of his own on his own time, and there’s work.

Jesse never quit working. There’s something cathartic in his sketching, whether it’s a portrait or whether it’s a design. Whether it’s with acrylic or oils, or charcoal or watercolours, or even with just ink, it’s cathartic. Like some people vent with music or with writing, Jesse gets his thoughts and emotions out by throwing them onto a blank canvas with colour or with monochrome darkness. What he likes about his particular brand of venting is the fact that, unless a connoisseur, unless some kind of very expert head-shrink, no one would know what it is he’s painting. For all they know, it’s just a design. Nothing more.

That’s what he’s doing when his phone rings. He’s sitting at the desk he keeps in Veil Towers—he’s got work stations all over the place. He has one in Larch, he has one in his hut at the Eyrie, and he also has one at work, at Masterpiece Tattoo. Veil Towers is where he happens to be after a recent conversation with Grey. He’s left her in the bed as he sits naked at the workstation, venting his thoughts onto the page. What results is a landscape that looks a lot like the Shadow Realm; in the middle, a woman with a hole in her chest, holding her heart in her hands.

The phone vibrates across the lacquered wood for a few long seconds while Jesse focuses on a single tedious detail. Only when he’s done does he pick the phone up; he is greeted with a picture of Axel looking blank-faced – he can’t remember when he took it. He smirks as he swipes the screen and answers.

“Got used to me speaking now then, eh?” he asks by way of greeting. Not many people call him these days. If they ever tried in the past they’d not be answered, or if he’d answered, they’d have been greeted with silence. It’s a habit that still prevails, he supposes. People just don’t call him, not often. He leans back in his chair. It’s been a while since he’s seen Axel.

“What’s up?”

[Axel Rosen]

Getting used to it is a bit of a yes and a no. After so long of having a mute sire, attuning himself to the silent conversations, notepads, texts, drawings, hand signals and the like, Axel is just now adjusting to the fact that Jesse can speak. It’s not abnormal for people to speak though so it doesn’t exactly catch him off guard until his sire asks him the question. It doesn’t fully hit him that just a year or so ago, he was speaking to his sire through holding up post-it notes from time to time to get the message across. Or nodding one’s head to the side to indicate direction. Those days are over though, and it’s made obvious by the voice coming through the speaker on the phone. “Yeah, I guess. Still got that new-voice sound, but otherwise pretty normal at this point”, he smirks.

“Uh, not much just wanting to see if you wanted to hang out, talk or whatever”, had he known the situation of his sire’s amount of clothing he may not be asking this question. He doesn’t know though, so he asks unwittingly as he makes his way toward Larch. If all else fails he can always make his way somewhere else. He ma be walking, for the first time in a while, through the city, but that doesn’t mean that the vampire isn’t able to make it from one side to the other without being tired and without doing it quickly. He’s about a seven blocks or so from Larch Court when he says this, not sure of what Jesse’s answer will be to the question. He waits for the reply, stretching backward to pop his bones.

Now that he’s back from his rest though, his sire doesn’t have to worry about not getting calls anymore. Axel plans on ‘bothering’ him for his company at least once a week, if nothing else for the purpose of being near him to sate whatever deep seeded emotional attachment he has to the other male. Again, it’s not a romantic love. It’s more of a devotion that binds him to Jesse in a way of a follower or a cultist to a cult leader. Six blocks away, moving fast out of boredom and eagerness to spend time with his sire - the response is almost too hard to wait for.

[Jesse Fforde]

The situation of Jesse’s state of dress, or lack thereof, means nothing to Jesse himself. It doesn’t cross his mind as Axel makes his request. Hang out. Or talk. Or whatever. Jesse arches a brow and reaches for a nearby packet of cigarettes. He knocks one from the packet and slips it behind his ear. Over his shoulder, somewhere in the apartment, are his jeans. In the pocket, a lighter. He strains as he looks for it. He’ll have to go outside. He’s not sure whether Grey would enjoy him smoking indoors, especially when they have to have all the windows and doors shut up all the time. He’s not really ever tested it. He himself doesn’t want the stink of nicotine sinking into the upholstery.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” he says as he stands and saunters over near the front door, where his jeans had landed. He kicks and nudges at the material. Yes, there’s something solid in one of the pockets. He balances the phone between ear and shoulder as he crouches down to rifle through the pants.

Truth is, he’s not talked to Axel much recently. The two of them have had a strange kind of relationship; and Jesse assumes that he hadn’t seen Axel for so long, somewhere there in the middle, due to Axel’s relationship with a woman that Jesse himself never wanted to see. Who, he’d recently realised, he could not forgive. Against whom he is certain he will hold an eternal grudge. He’s not really talked much with Axel. Not about anything of too much significance, anyway. Axel strikes Jesse as a man who doesn’t often show his emotions. Either that, or he doesn’t actually have any.

“Let me have a cigarette and get dressed,” he says, fingers closing around the solid metal tube of the lighter. Yes, in that order – it’s their balcony, and they’re far enough up, right? He can go out there dressed in his birthday suit. Nothing wrong with that.

“And I can meet you at Larch in… ten minutes?” he says. He’s at Veil, and Larch is only a hop, skip and a jump across the street. It won’t take him long to get there.

[Axel Rosen]

It isn’t that Axel doesn’t have emotions as he has shown them in the past. It is true though that he doesn’t show them. It’s not because of any fear or any sort of problem doing so on a psychological level. It’s more that he sees no benefit in talking about or showing his emotions most of the time, rather than it just be some big display for the people around him to see a frown, a tear, a break down. Might even be something they want to see, and all the more reason to do it in private and let no one watch - ever. Writing is his release of everything but anger. That emotion, he knows, he shows very well. He can’t hide it, because as it happens his eyes turn black with no pupils, the air around him pulse and the ground cracks. Anger’s hard to hide with environmental tells like that.

“Yeah, sure”, that gives him ten minutes of walking around and doing nothing really. But maybe he can go and see if there are any new relics for sale at the local shops or if the ones that are there have gone down in price. Probably not, but what’s the harm in looking. “I’ll see you when you get there.” Axel would literally just be a step away if he needed to be there now. On top of that he could teleport. Hanging up the phone he starts walking around almost aimlessly. The thoughts that are about him are those of his past and the mistakes that he’s made. He wishes that he could push them from his mind, or, if he really needed to, just forget most of his history all together. If such a thing were even remotely possible

[Jesse Fforde]

Axel hangs up and Jesse leaves the phone on the kitchen counter as he walks outside with his cigarette and his lighter. He leans against the railing of the balcony – he’s seven floors up, and he enjoys the view. The people down on the street below are like ants. They aren’t discernible. One cannot tell if they are male or female, vampire or human. They’re faceless, and nameless, and Jesse enjoys watching them. These people, going about their business without realising they are being watched. Can they feel it? Can they feel the eyes in the back of their skulls?

It doesn’t take long for Jesse to finish his cigarette. Watching the people down below, he realises that, depending on which way Axel is coming from, one of them could be him. Which reminds Jesse of the passing of time, and the ten minutes that he’d promised his progeny. He stubs the cigarette out in the metal ashtray in the middle of the outdoor dining set, and slips back inside. He makes sure that the heavily tinted glass doors are closed and locked, before going into the bedroom to retrieve a pair of dark denim jeans, and an old jumper that had probably seen better days. Or had he bought it, with all the holes in it? It doesn’t really matter. It’s clothing, which he needs if he’s going to be heading out into the public space. At the front door he pulls some boots onto his feet, which remain unlaced as he slips out of the apartment and locks the door behind him.

By the time he reaches Larch Court it’s probably been fifteen minutes. There’s something about his mood recently; he feels like a fat house cat, completely content and at ease. Sure, there are some anxieties that he has. There are bouts of anger that sometimes surge forth; but they are few and far between. The relaxed, unstressed nature of Jesse’s mood makes him a little bit tardy sometimes. Fashionably late, they say. It that because those who like to be fashionable are aware of the attention their lateness inspires?

It doesn’t matter, anyway. The key slides into the lock. Inside, the lights are blazing, as they always are. There always seems to be someone around. Jesse’s eyes sweep the space of the room, looking for the other heavily tattooed male.

[Attire]

[Axel Rosen]

Finally making his way to family dwelling, it appears that he has gotten here first. Using the key that was given to him at the point of the home’s purchase, he moves to the center of the living room. It appears that he is right in assume that he’s the first person here, but not the only person here. Though he’s not entirely sure that there is anyone else paying attention to him. He doesn’t sense his childer nor theirs so he shrugs a little bit. It must be some of his ‘would be’ siblings in this life and that’s not too bad. He doesn’t mind them. He knows Felicity the best despite that she’s been gone for most of her life as a vampire. He knows Abigail almost as well. The others are people that he’s interested in meeting but hasn’t yet. There is time for everything though and he’ll eventually put his hand out to meet them. His eyes fix on the table before him as he goes over all of the thoughts about his siblings. Even though the main thought for most of them is: ‘haven’t really spoken to him/her yet’.

The door opens again after about five minutes of him sitting there. The first thought that goes through his mind as he sees his sire is the question - ‘should I stand?’ No that’s not right. That’s too far, surely he shouldn’t stand but some form of respect is no doubt needed here. He can’t tell exactly what is necessary so he merely bows his head as if to avert his gaze from the man that turned him. After two, maybe three, seconds he lifts his head and then makes room on the couch that he’s on. “Evening, it’s good to see you.” He’d add ‘sire’ but he knows that his creator doesn’t actually enjoy that term, nor any other term than his name. He could try it to see if things have changed since their last big talk but he doesn’t see that going in his favor. Instead he just sits and waits for the man to sit down near him, still continuing the conversation. “It’s been a while since we’ve talked. How have you been?”

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse sighs as he sinks down into the couch, into the space that Axel had made for him. Yes, he had seen the nod, but assumed it was just a greeting nod. Nothing odd about it, nothing severely worshipful. Jesse doesn’t expect to be worshipped. The nod is just fine; it’s exactly how he’d greet other people.

There’s that question. How have you been? That same question everyone always asks everyone else, and how long has it been since he’s had a proper long conversation with Axel, anyway? How much attention does Axel actually pay to anything that goes on? Has anything much been going on anyway? Plenty, Jesse assumes, but the events wash over his mind like water through silt and he can’t grasp any of them properly. He sighs and rubs his hands over his face, and shrugs his shoulders.

”I have been ecstatic, and I have been sad. I have been dead, I have been content, blissful, furious, agitated. All of the things under the sun,” he says, turning his bright eyes over to his progeny after he answers. ”It’s life, you know. It goes,” he adds with a wry grin. He could of course be more specific. He could say why he died; could say why he was blissful, and still is. Why his mood, at that specific moment, was akin to walking on clouds and never fearing the drop to the ground far, far below. He could but he won’t, because Axel hasn’t been around much. Axel isn’t one of the people Jesse shares all his deepest happiness with, not just yet. Yes, on the surface he has forgiven Axel for going and engaging himself to a woman who’d done Jesse some great disservices. Though the knife may have been removed, the wound is still there.

”How have you been?” Jesse asks. ”Rarely see you around these days, man. What have you been doing?”