Path of the Vampire forum

[Backdated to July 3, 2015]

<Grey> Five nights. It had been five nights since Grey had walked away from Jesse in the garden. It had been three nights where she felt like the noose around her neck was slipping tighter and tighter. The rope of the inevitable failures were starting to chafe her skin. Funny, how one realizes that they don’t need oxygen to survive. Their world slowly begins to implode. It becomes filled with harsh expectations and damnation. The torture could be endless for someone that didn’t need to survive on the typical concepts of a human’s existence.

“Goodnight Brock.” Grey called over her shoulder, face dirty and smeared. Not with sweat, of course. No. Dead people did not sweat. Where her face throbbed from the hot oil that had oozed out between a broken line, she ignored the pain. Her heart was hurting inside her chest. It was nothing compared to the pain inside of her chest.

She had been fighting the urge to run for days.

Get up.

Move.

Go.

Run.

You are ******* worthless.

She was a sinner. She was a woman who was the biggest hypocrite.

No one will ever want you.

She was a *****. She was damned.

She narrowed her eyes, stepping onto the escalator with those dirty work boots. The world around her blurred as she struggled to keep her tears at bay. Fruitless. Effortless. Emotional torture. Grey’s skin slithered. She could feel the remnants of long ago touches from a cruel woman who had stolen her childhood and replaced it with cold hate.

I hate you. I hate you! You don’t deserve ****. Miserable little wench. Stop crying!

STOP IT!

She tossed her head back, in the middle of a deserted street, and laughed. The mechanic laughed. It was a deep, guttural stir within the hollowest part of her soul. Tears burned her eyes and the lump of emotion seemed to be lodged between two wraps of the non-existent rope at her neck. She was choking on the past and the present.

You will never be like Velveteen.

Maybe, just maybe… She had finally lost it. It had been weeks since she lost that important connection to Jesse’s touch. Denied something that had kept her centered, Grey’s axis was tilted. For a woman that craved touch, she certainly didn’t share it with many people. In fact, that was her problem all along. She didn’t give anyone much. She didn’t give them the time of day they deserved to even attempt to get to know her.

You are worthless. So ******* worthless. That’s why everyone leaves you!

She barely had made it to Andras functions, accepted into an overwhelming swarm of family under the knowledge that she was Jesse’s girlfriend; she couldn’t even function like a civil human being. Because, in truth, she wasn’t. She was a monster. She was a vampire. She was a recently turned vampire - no, novice. Fucked in the head and was trying to choke down the changes in her life with a smile on her face and a simple nod of her head that everything was just fine.

Fine. Fine was the ultimate female code that everything was fucked. It was a word used to placate the person who asked what was wrong. Because on the surface, everything looked alright. But, inside, everything was a mess. Grey was a mess. She was drowning in emotions she couldn’t even make sense of. The scales had tipped as soon as she was taken into the bosom of this Night World.

Not wanting to go home, Grey slipped into the sewers. Water sloshed around her feet. She didn’t care anymore. She drew whatever attention she could muster. Her skin was pale, but not gone of its barely there pink blush. The heat prickling her skin from the Paladin’s bullets was a welcoming warmth. The burn was something that made her feel. It made sense. Because if someone got shot with a bullet, that was supposed to hurt. Right?

Grey’s eyebrows drew together, as if she was questioning this pain within her chest. She lifted her gun, that BFG made by Brock. It was made to help defend herself against her words to Micah. Against the words that had gotten her removed from Andras. Family couldn’t say anything.

Family had to smile and play nice. Grey had certainly opened her mouth and bit off more than she could chew. An apology wasn’t enough, and it was only after the heat of the moment that she recognized the blown gasket that no longer would make the engine run. A hand went to her lower back, rubbing at the blood that dampened the shirt and reminded her of the wound she sustained that lead to damages irreparable.

Jesse and Grey had created a monster together. It was discovered only when Grey had bled a different color than red upon inspection.

She sucked in a deep breath, the gun hanging in her grip as she had traveled through the sewers to her typical exit close to Veil Towers. The weight of the world held her down, grounded in realization that she did not even know how to function as a family member. Swallowing the blood that crept up her throat, the abdominal wound of the latest bullet no doubt ruptured something inside of her.

Broken.

She was ******* broken in so many more ways than one.

Jesse had been upset with her. He had been frustrated at her that she told him she ‘understood’ that he had Sired again. He wanted to be happy. He Sired others to make himself happy. True… It wasn’t about being enough for him. Right? He had reiterated in that quick conversation that it wasn’t about being enough. Her chin turned. The steps of her boots were ingrained as if they had their own memory of where her home was. She looked to the right. Eyes were blistered as she could see Larch Court in the distance.

She turned into Veil Towers. There was no smile at the doorman. She didn’t even remember the elevator ride up or the frown of the occupants as they noticed blood on the backside of that white t-shirt.

She didn’t care.

Like a robot, she pulled her keys out of her pocket. Gulping within that noose around her neck, Grey struggled to take in a human’s breath in a dead body. The door was shut behind her, but not locked. She went to the fridge. Thirsty. Her vision grayed at the edges, blurred until she gripped the glass with two hands and choked down as many blood packets until her stomach revolted. The last couple gulps had sputtered up and out, spewed across the upper cabinets and backsplash of the sink.

Now look at that ******* mess.

You are such a God damn waste of my time.

The burning of her throat that ran up to her left cheek and across the bridge of her nose had flesh peeled away, the blisters puffing into swollen skin as the process of healing started rapidly. Blood replaced, she crushed the glass in her hands. The sound of her mother’s voice in her ears grating across her nerves just as Jesse’s outraged cry that he just wanted to be happy.

Happy.

Why couldn’t she be happy?

As the glass splintered and a large jagged piece pierced the meat of her left thumb, like miniature dagger, Grey almost felt the relief. There was something different to focus on. With the shards of glass littering and sticking to her bloodied skin, she looked down at her grip now twisted into fists. Why couldn’t she function like a normal ******* person?!

She pulled the large shard of glass out of her hand. She walked to the bedroom. She sank down into the dark corner. No, not on the bed that hadn’t been touched in days. The sheets that were on it were the last that she and Jesse had slept on. The comforter had been pulled up. The pillows had been fluffed night after night. She didn’t run her fingers across his side, though. No. She didn’t want to bloody that memory.

Instead, she eased herself down the wall. Tucked into the corner, she had locked herself out of the closet days ago. No. No shelter for her. No reprieve. She had been a bad girl. She didn’t get the comfort of the closet when she had hurt someone so close to her. So she sank down onto the floor, with her knees brought up against her chest and she started to drag the sharp glass up and down her flesh.

Over and over again, she made those slits in her skin.

As the skin on her face and neck healed from those blister burns, the skin smoothing over into a pale pink, the knicks in her flesh started to take a longer time to heal. Blood dripped. Blood oozed. And her thoughts sank onto Jesse. Onto the feel of spilling the blood. Onto the cuts. Onto the way her skin was sliced open and how it was a different kind of pain.

The red of her alarm clock blinked against the dark wall opposite. The crisp little red dots reminding her that time continued on as she gripped that shard tighter.

The anguish in her chest seemed to dissipate as the pain became physical now.

A pain that she could stand.

<Jesse Fforde> The past week had been different. Unusual, strange. Jesse has learned a lot in the past week, and feels as if he’s been unfairly distracted. Not unfair on himself, but unfair on others.

He’d spent at least two nights with Clover. He lifts his hand to his cheek now, as if he might still feel the angry welt of her slap, but there’s nothing there. Just stubble and smooth skin underneath. There’s no lingering hurt, except all those accusations and revelations. But it had been different. Unusual. His progeny had that metaphorical knife stuck up against his soft underbelly but it hadn’t been malicious. It’s been a night since his second encounter with Clover and he’s had time to think about it. He’d laid on his back in one of the bunks at Larch Court after waking, his hands on his chest as he stared at the ceiling. Thinking. He tries not to do too much thinking, these days, because it just leads to traps. Snarls and tangles that he struggles to get free of. These days, he’s regressed to that younger man who forged onward and didn’t think about his actions. The one who turned a blind eye to consequences in order to move on to the next thing. The next cliff. The next adrenaline rush.

That’s what he’s been missing. The adrenaline rush. It’s why he sires, or so he tells himself. There are numerous reasons why he tells himself and others that he sires; but it makes sense, doesn’t it? That after he’s sired he’s able to relax and when he hasn’t, when he doesn’t, he feels the distinct urge to create some kind of chaos. To create something. Anything.

But, he’d realised his error; asking Clover to let it all out. He was a hypocrite, asking her to do something that he himself does not do. He hides it, pushes it down and back, bottles it. As he lays there, it’s as if he can feel the world turning on its axis. He can feel it moving around him in all its glory; a huge planet and he just a tiny part of it. He is nothing special. He is no God. In the end, he really has no more wisdom than anyone else. But as that world turns on its axis, he realises that things have to change. He can’t keep going the way he’s going. The path will only lead to a dead end. A boring dead end with no light or colour. And it might not be so easy to back track. Does he really want to live that kind of life, anyway?

The future is a yawning, gaping possibility in front of him. There are plenty of threats there, too--things that he knows he must do that terrify him, but he’s going to do them anyway. Come hell or high weather, he’s going to forge onward, like he always has. Like he should have been doing all along.If he doesn’t keep moving he’ll end up like he did in that garden, five nights prior; stuck and tangles in vicious vines that won’t let him go.

He needs to make mistakes and laugh when he’s caught. He needs to feel the fire licking at his feet and the knives pressing against his skin. He needs to make the earth rumble around him. Because he needs to feel alive. Here they are in a world where they can die and come back to life, but what risks does he ever take? None. Nothing.

He doesn’t know how long he lays there, calm but for the storm slowly brewing in his core. It’s been there since the night before; stirred and fuelled by Clover’s fury. When he feels the sharp pain in his hand, his brow furrows in confusion. He’d been unfocused. His vision blurs until he blinks, lifting his hand to look at it. It’s fine, even though it feels like something sharp has lodged beneath the surface of his skin.

After a minute or so, the pain intensifies. Grows. Spreads. Jesse remains confused only for another twenty seconds. He knows what it is, then. That strange sensation, as if someone’s poking at a voodoo doll and making him hurt. Except he knows that there is a voodoo doll. A living one. He and she are tethered, connected like a ship and dock, or an anchor sunk deep into the furious ocean. Miles of rope could separate them, but they are still connected. The distance between them had only increased as each night passed and Jesse did not see her. The garage side of Gresse’s remained empty, even when he went to work on some tattoos, distracting himself with the walk-ins. This place he had constructed so that they could always be together, and yet her loyalties still seem to lie with Brock. With Auto Doc. Gresse’s is a failure, he thinks. A place that he’d been excited about, thrilled, that he’d thrown everything into, but no one else feels the same. Not even the Gre half of the building’s name has any interest in staying there.

Stubborn anger is what it was, when he knows she was probably just avoiding him, just as he’d been avoiding the apartment. Stubbornly waiting for her to come to him. Stubbornly hoping to lure her out. And now this. This. What is she doing?

Jesse hisses as he swings his legs from the bunk and drops to the ground. He pulls on a plain shirt and a pair of jeans over his boxer-briefs. He hastily pulls shoes onto his feet and slams through the front door of Larch Court. It’s a short walk to Veil Towers, and he’s crashing through the door of the apartment ten minutes--fifteen at the most--after the phantom pain in his hand had begun.

First, he smells the blood. Not Grey’s, not yet. But the blood splattered over the kitchen cabinets. Stale and old blood. His nostrils flare and his hands clench. There’s shattered glass, too. And then he can smell it. Beneath the blood on the cabinets, Grey’s blood. Drops of it, on the floor. A trail that he follows through to the bedroom, where the scent is stronger. The strongest thing in the room, and despite everything, it stirs a bestial hunger in Jesse. When he sees her, with that shard of glass and her skin maimed and torn, he throws his hands up into the air.

“What the **** are you doing? Why are you doing that?!” he shouts. He doesn’t think about it. He should feel concern; which he does, but it’s overwhelmed by frustration. The same frustration he’s been feeling for weeks, months, with Grey. Right now, he feels like he knows more about Clover than he does about Grey, for all that Grey actually opens up to him. Or maybe he does know all there is to know about Grey there’s nothing that can be done.

He lurches forward, wrenching the shard of glass from Grey. He doesn’t throw it away. Just holds it tight in his palm as he backs up again.

“Get up, Grey. Please just get out of the corner…” he says. It’s become habit, finding her curled up in some corner, or in a ball on the bed, her back to him. She’s never happy, these days. Ever. And he feels like he’s failed her, somehow.

<Grey> Her skin burned. Her skin hurt. The nerve endings were firing and she could revel in the sensations that were supposed to be there. If one got cut, it was supposed to hurt. If one got hit, it was supposed to hurt. If one died, it was supposed to hurt. Or… Was it?

She died. She died and it only hurt for a few moments. The headache was severe and the aura had clung to objects for hours. She had remembered the weakened feeling of her muscles and the way her stomach churned. That was all quantitative. It was all on purpose. She hurt because she had been made into more of a monster. Forever. Eternity as a killer.

And she sat there, licking her lower lip. Grey licked off the old, stale blood and did not even manage to grimace at the taste of it. Instead, everything had turned gray in her view. Everything had died. Unlike Jesse’s charisma, like the plants that had been drawn to him, so had Grey. When others were repulsed by his pure demeanor, Grey had been intrigued.

She poked the bear.

She antagonized the giant.

She fell in love with her beast.

And she had died for him.

But, in a way, Grey was already dead. She had no family left to speak of. The only member that she had … loved … was her father that had been taken from her too soon. Her mother, no. No, Grey could not even call that woman a mother anymore. That pure hatred didn’t even deserve a title let alone to exist in a world.

Nature versus nurture, and Grey had barely been able to escape with her wit and her sense of humor. She had a few battered belongings that she traveled with. They were all inside that ugly, over-the-shoulder, olive green bag. It had a few rumpled pictures of her father and one small black and white family portrait. It had a money clip with initials and a few spare hundred dollars. There was a small box, it contained letters. Letters that she never shared and tiny little trinkets that were once important to her as a child.

She didn’t want Jesse here. She didn’t hurt herself to bring him to her. She wouldn’t play the victim card, even if she was one. She wouldn’t bring him into the dark chaos of her mind, beaten down by old memories and hateful words. “I don’t want you here. I didn’t ask for you. I didn’t send any calls for help. Did you get anything from me that said I needed your HELP?!”

She screamed it at him. At the same time, she recoiled further into that corner. Her face was dotted and smeared with blood. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me. Oh God… Don’t touch me. I’m so dirty. I break everything. You. I broke you. They were right, you know. I changed you. I’m sorry. I’m worthless. Terrible. I just… I just suck everything from you. No good. I’m no good.”

Grey gasped, her chin jerking up to look at Jesse. She saw him. She grimaced as she saw the anger and the pure frustration on his face. She gulped down the sob that wanted to just rumble up from her throat. She pulled her hands in front of her, as if she were protecting her face and hiding from him at the same time. Blood dripped down the cuts. Slashes, jabs, deep lacerations into her muscles that flayed open the skin for sometimes inches at a time.

“Don’t look at me. I’m ugly. I’m HIDEOUS!”

“Leave me alone. Go away! You don’t get to see me like this. I’m NOT your PROBLEM!” She screamed. She screamed it so loud and so hard that her entire body shook. Rage. Angry rage that had been bottled up inside of her. Fists formed, blood oozed down to drip off her elbows as she kept her face hidden behind those forearms.

<Jesse Fforde> It crosses Jesse’s mind to give Grey a taste of her own medicine. To walk away, just as she always walks away, these days. But this is more than he’s got from her in a long time, and he almost laughs. What a pair! What a self-destructive pair! All of them. Except, where he and Clover have discovered that they each prefer to destroy the world around them in their fury, Grey had turned that fury on herself. She’s destroying herself, rather than everything she owns, and everything she has. Though with each word she screams, Jesse feels her hacking away at that bond that joins them, trying to sever it completely.

At least, that’s what it feels like.

He tosses the shard of glass aside and again steps forward. Where Grey is trying to hide, he doesn’t let her. Strong hands slip in beneath her arms, pulling her up. Trying to get her to stand and to stop hiding. Trying to get her out into the middle of the room. Maybe this isn’t how he should go about it. Maybe he should get down on his haunches and try to coax her out with reassurance. Reassurance hasn’t worked in the past, though, so why should it work now? No words will act as bandaids over this.

“We’re supposed to be getting married, Grey! You ARE my problem. Just like I’m your ******* problem. ‘Til death do us part, right? You don’t get to hide from me! Quit ******* hiding from me!” he shouts. Again, there’s that urge to laugh. The themes continue to recur. He himself had been accused of hiding, recently. Except he’d never hidden from Grey. Ever. Grey has seen him at his worst. She’s seen him when all he’d wanted to do was die. She’d been there when he’d felt the urge to sink beneath the water of the bathtub to drown everything out. She’s always there when he comes home and needs to vent, to scream and yell about how he’d felt wrongly done by.

“I’m already ******* broken, Grey. I always have been. You didn’t change anything. It’s always been there, beneath the surface. If you’re the one who’s made me understand that I have the ability to give more of a **** than I thought, if you’re the one who’s helped me to realise that this family, such as it is, is what’s helping to fill that godawful black-hole of a void that’s been there for decades, I don’t see the ******* harm in that. Do you?! Am I broken to you, Grey? Is that what you’re saying? No! Why are you doing this? Why are you so ******* unhappy?!”

He’s angry. He’s furious. He doesn’t know what the **** to do with her. He gestures wildly at thin air and paces the room. But he doesn’t leave, like she wants him to. Hell, no. Not when he’s finally getting something out of her.

<Grey> Anger. Rage. Sorrow. Unknown fear. They all seem to wrap around her and tighten the noose around her neck. She had curled herself into that corner of her new refuge and when Jesse had stepped into her safety zone, she let out a scream.

Yes. A scream. When she felt the air shift and the world tilt again as he pulled her up. Underneath her arms where she hadn’t cut yet. Where she hadn’t slid the glass to mar skin there. His precious portrait. His canvas. She was drawing on it herself by each blood smearing across her flesh. And she wanted to kick out. She wanted to hit at him. And for a blanketed moment she forgot where she was. She forgot who it was that was grabbing at her.

Her mother’s hold was tight. It hurt, just like Jesse’s did in that moment. He put all his fury into his iron clad grip and though she couldn’t appreciate it in that moment; something inside her broke even further. “Daddy!”

“Help me!” She screamed out. She had tossed her head back to fight old demons and to drop into that ball that she had long since developed in reaction to hits and kicks that had broken bones and hurt emotions. Pride? There was no pride. His voice rips her into the present once more. Now, she had gotten as far as the middle of the room, but with her hitting at him the entire way. She tried to shove free of him. Even her immortal strength was not a match for his. Her intentions weren’t to damage - no, it was pure self defense.

“Please… Please don’t hate me.” The past and the present were clashing together. Memories and tirades stamping themselves on her brain. She choked down a cough. She sucked down another breath, bloodied hands slick and making it difficult to get a good grab in until he backed away and started pacing. “Happiness… What is that?”

Grey asked in earnest. She wasn’t sure. She didn’t know.

Happiness was living to survive another day. It was a decent meal. It was a cup of coffee. It was a good book.

That’s what it was.

She shifted, sinking down onto her *** with her legs curled underneath her. “You left. Just like she said you would. You left. And I couldn’t breathe.” It was proverbial… But that meant she was right. And Grey couldn’t swallow that.

<Jesse Fforde> It had something to do with Grey’s past. Jesse knows that now, with her odd screaming. Daddy. He isn’t her Daddy! And she’s struggled against him so vehemently, as if he was going to hurt her. And that hurt more than anything else; that Grey would ever think that Jesse would hurt her. When had he ever, and why would he start now?

He wants to kill her mother. He’d asked her before, whether that’s what she wanted him to do and she said no. But he’s starting to think that’s the only way she’ll be able to move forward, if she can just somehow let go. Let the **** go of everything that’s dragging her down.

Jesse chokes on his laugh as it rips from his throat; incredulity, first, that she should accuse him of leaving. But he chokes because of the previous question, that had only just sunk in. She asked what happiness was. There’s his answer. She hasn’t been happy at all. All those times he’d thought that she was. He’d wanted her to go back to the way she was, which is selfish. But that’s a theme, too, lately. Jesse and his selfishness. But now, he’s wondering if he does want her to go back. No. Not if that was just a mask.

“I didn’t leave!” he shouts. He keeps his distance from Grey, now. The way she’d screamed at him as if he were the worst thing that could have happened to her, right now. It hurts. But this isn’t about him. Not now. It’s about her.

“You left! You walked away! You’ve been at home, and I’ve been at home, but you haven’t been at work. And YOU were the one who walked away. Have you never been happy, Grey? Not once? Ever? What are we? What is this if you’re not happy? Why would you agree to get bound to me if you’re not ******* happy?” he asks. He doesn’t understand.

“She? Your mother? She doesn’t ******* know me she doesn’t have a say in this. None. She never said I would leave you. Not me. She’s not here and she has no ******* clue!” he’s still angry. Though he has stopped pacing. He now stands still, staring down at Grey. Wondering if there will be any answers or just more obscurity.

<Grey> Bombardment. So many questions. Her mind reels and she feels like she is going to be sick. Her skin prickles. It is a painful realization that she had just again, unintentionally hurt someone that she loved. She shifted. Turning onto her hands and knees she crawled away from him. She left the middle of the room where he had dragged her to with an agonizingly slow scrape of denim against carpet. Her bullet wound at her back had healed, leaving a bit of a bruise to the healing flesh there at her right flank. Once again, almost in truth, like a wounded animal - she slathered herself up against the wall. She put her back to it for an invisible support as if she was used to barely holding herself up after an attack.

As he laughs, Grey stares at him blankly. She had been… happy with him. She looked at him as if she were trying to calculate that happiness with him. The need to have him. The rationalization to cling to him. As her mind swarmed, she felt her body’s adrenaline starting to dwindle. The pain became a dull, constant ache that had her muscles and her arms jerking as she folded them across her chest.

“Just wanted your respect. Just wanted you to talk to me. If I’m supposed to mean something to you, why don’t I know what’s going on inside your head? You want mine? You want my past? You want my current state of ******* confusion? How is this…

I wake up. I go to work. Brock called and asked for help. I came home. I slept. I missed you. I picked up the phone a hundred times to tell you I was sorry. And then, I stopped myself. Sorry for what? Sorry for asking you to tell me when you wanted to Sire someone? No. Sorry for letting you enjoy yourself and do what I know you felt you needed to do? No. I was angry that you couldn’t confide in me. And then I realized, maybe you didn’t want to. Maybe that was your own way of going about and dealing with what a **** up I am.”

She shifted, sliding onto her *** instead of the soles of her feet. She was tired after all and her energy was draining. “I… I was a child who got straight A’s because if I didn’t, my mother broke bones. I was a teenager who didn’t play in sports or participate in the drama club because I was feeding my mother’s bad habits. I was her outlet. Her anger. Her pain. Worthless. ******* worthless. Only thing I was to her was a reminder of the life she could have had if my dad didn’t die young. She broke my pride. She cut me down so little that it wasn’t until one of her junky pimps thought he’d get payment from me.”

She twisted, pulling at her t-shirt. She shoved her arms inside, hiding those wounds from his eyes. “I moved. I ran. I existed. From one place to another. Scared to death she’d find me. I could snap her neck right now. But, I still hear her. I hear her voice. Her malice. Her disdain. I hear her anger. I hear her rage. She’s right. She is right, you know. I was never supposed to amount to anything. And you broke that mold in me. I fell for you. I fell hard and fast and I didn’t know what I was doing.”

It was Grey’s turn to laugh now. To let her head fall back against the wall. Her eyes closed. She couldn’t look at Jesse in that moment. No. She smiled. “I remember our first kiss. The taste of your lips. The first bikeride you gave me. I loved the wind in my hair. I remember you would take me to any restaurant or diner or ice cream stand I pointed out. And our adventure in the store. You scared me, Jesse. You scared me, but in a good way. And then I meant more to you. And it was real. So real. And I got lost somewhere along the way. I was just this carefree girl with the only goal to save up money so I could have a little spending money before I stuck my thumb out at the next eighteen wheeler.”

She choked down a gulp. Her shirt started to become soaked in blood. “**** got real. I started feeling things when you turned me. Things I didn’t understand. Emotions… People overwhelmed me. I could hear my mother’s … thoughts. It almost wasn’t even her voice. It wasn’t even her memories I had of her. The venom was real. It hurt. You hurt. I could feel everything, Jesse. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know how to make it better. I was drowning.”

With a deep breath, she took refuge against the wall now, muscles lax. “I am sorry. You said to stop apologizing. Habit. It’s habit. The hurt is habit. But happiness… I am happy with you. You make me feel those butterflies in my stomach and my chest tighten. I need you. And I hate when you are upset with me.

<Jesse Fforde> Jesse’s response to Grey’s first revelations is drowned in the rest of it. As she slips down the wall and sits down, Jesse sits down, too. Cross-legged in the middle of the floor, still at a distance. Their wounds in the past had been healed temporarily with physical contact, and he doesn’t want to do that, this time. He wants to get to the bottom of everything. It’s been a week for getting to the bottom of everything. He’s not going to stop here.

“Yes, I know,” he says. More harsh than it needs to be, but he’s not going to coddle this time. He’s done coddling. It doesn’t seem to matter how often he repeats things, Grey never gets it. She might say she does in that moment, but she retreats again into self-loathing and despair, accusing him of things so he has to go on and repeat everything again. Sooner or later, he feels like he won’t repeat it anymore. How can he help Grey when she does nothing to help herself?

“You hate when I’m upset with you. You hate it when I’m not with you. You’re a depressed mess whenever I’m not at your side and you can’t stand gatherings because you want me to yourself. So are you really happy or is it just a bandaid? Something that makes you feel a little better but as soon as it’s gone, you’re a mess again? I can’t feel guilty whenever I have other things to do or other people to see. I can’t live like that, Grey, and I can’t stand coming home all the time to find you’ve been crying or… ******* cutting yourself,” he says.

“I confide in you! I confide only in you. You hear everything. You know everything. There’s not a thing in my head that you don’t know. I don’t tell you when I’m going to sire someone because I don’t ******* know that myself! I don’t wake up thinking I’m going to sire someone. It happens on a whim, in the moment, spontaneously. You KNOW this. You KNOW I always want to! Always. It’s always there. So don’t go throwing this on me, Grey. Don’t blame me. My not confiding in you before I turn someone has nothing to do with how I feel about you. You just can’t let go of your past! Let her find you. Let your mother track you down. Better yet! We’ll go track her down. If you don’t come with me, I’ll do it myself. I’ll drag her back here. You need to quit listening to her, or what you think is her, because that’s your past and it doesn’t ******* matter anymore,” he says. His voice cracks somewhere in the middle, lost.

But will it do any good, all this talk? They’ve talked like this before. But here they are again, back in the same place. What good does it ever really do, in the end?

<Grey> She listens to him. As he speaks, Grey can only know that there are truth to his words. She does want him only to herself. And she knows that such a want is stupid. The possessive instinct within her had long been dormant. Or, in fact, it had only been obvious to a few things and by far, Jesse was no thing. He was a person. He was a magnificent man that had given her quite literally the shirt off of his back to provide for her at the beginning of their relationship.

And this was how she thanked him? By being miserable, Grey couldn’t understand it. She sucked down a deep breath, tasting her own blood and the remnants of what she had sucked down from that last blood pack. “Gatherings make me… Uncomfortable. It’s not always because I want you alone. But, I do. I do want you alone. I need you. I can’t not have you. When I’m not with you, I feel that ache deep inside. You are all that I have, Jesse. You are the only one that cares enough to try to understand.”

They had this discussion before. Grey had a plethora of insecurities. There was no socialization for had as a child or in school. She sucked down a breath and let her head fall to rest against the tops of her knees. To have anyone see her like this would be a huge embarrassment to Jesse.

Grey closes her eyes again in that slow blink and she can almost see the gangly, ugly outline of what her mother used to look like. It had been a few years since that stern, repulsive woman had pointed her finger at Grey and landed a few solid kicks into her gut. Could this all be fixed by death? Or was Grey really just a fucked up head case now that she had a ‘life’ and a ‘routine’ and someone to call her fiance and a family of her own that she barely even touched base with.

Because she was afraid that they would see how awful of a person she really was. Because she was afraid that she had nothing to offer any of them. Because she was afraid they’d see her for what she was; a woman who was most certainly lost in this new world. “I did it because… It took the focus off of the pain I was feeling inside.” She whispered, her words filling the dark, black space of the room.

<Jesse Fforde> “Why? You say you’re hurting because you think I think you’re a **** up. That I left you, and walked away from you,” he says. Yes, that’s the answer she had given. She was cutting herself because she thought she was ugly, that she wasn’t worth his time. The pressure is there. He is all that she has. Everything he does affects her. Her life is there in his hands to do with as he pleases. He shouts and she apologises. And there she goes again, apologising, and he shakes his head. He roughly pushes his fingers through his hair and tries to reason with himself before he reasons with Grey. If he can even do that.

“Why do you suddenly depend on me so much? You were independent before you met me and you took care of yourself just fine. Shout at me. Throw things at me. You’ve done that before! I didn’t come to you for five days. A week. You were angry with me but you just walked away. Don’t! Hunt me down. Slap me. Kick me between the ******* legs, Grey. I could have, you know,” he says. He clears his throat, and rolls his shoulders. No, he shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be using this information on a gamble. On a hope that she’ll react the way he wants her to. No, he can’t. He can’t bring that up, yet. He shakes his head again.

“No one cares enough to try to understand me either, but what the **** does that matter? You can still try to enjoy their company, get to know them. How do you ever give anyone the chance to get to know you enough to want to understand? You keep everyone at arm’s length, of course they’re not going to try getting any closer. You feel pain because of something I did so slash me with the ******* glass, not yourself! That’s ******* idiotic!” he shouts. All of this because she assumed he wasn’t confiding in her because he didn’t want to. When all she had to do was confront him about it, and she wouldn’t be feeling this way. Right?

But Jesse’s starting to think it isn’t just about him. It’s far deeper than that. Grey’s secrets are her secrets, but he’s going to rip them open. He wants to find them, pull them up out of the ground. Bring that past back to her so that she can cut it down to size.

<Grey> She hurts. She’s hurting right now. She’s feeling the pressure of her skin tightening and the pain of her arms trying to heal. Her skin stretched and itched. Her fingers clenched together tightly into fists that she held close to her throat underneath her t-shirt. Jesse wanted answers. He deserved to have them. It seemed all so silly when he laid it out in words. When feelings weren’t wrapped around the truth that came across his lips.

“Physical pain was all I used to know. I didn’t have to deal with emotional pain. There was no emotions in the house I lived in. Everything was pushed deep. There were no tears. There was no anger. There was no heated arguments. If I said something, anything, the wrong way… I would get backhanded. I’m used to retaliation. When I voiced my opinion and anger at Micah, I thought I would surely die.”

They both did, to be honest. Grey pulled up her big girl panties, stuffed her attitude deep, and faced the man that she had bitten with venom. That seemed to of been the beginning of the most recent end to her antics. To her anger. To the way she had to shelve her feelings and be a supportive front. And yet, when Jesse spoke to her about being more of a calming presence instead of harsh - she didn’t know what to do.

She had pissed off Clover in a few sentences and sent Kenlie into a fury of irritation over what was going on with Victor and Velveteen weeks ago. No, months. It had been that long now, Grey was sure. She was trapped in this bubble of expectations and feelings and Grey sort of took each as a layer and a mask. Her nostrils flared as he made any sort of reference to extracurricular activities. “You just said I was independent. Five days. It was a long time. I figured you were mad at me. You… Were angry with me. I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to grab you when you went back to the garden, but you already had your hands in the dirt.”

She bit her lower lip. She sank her teeth deep into that morsel as she opened those eyes and landed them upon her lover’s face. Dark eyes that were suddenly bright in the reflected light of the redness of the room. The alarm clock still blinked, making it’s presence known as they sat against opposite walls of each other.

“Why cut you when I was the problem? When I don’t have the answer for you. When I am the one that questioned you. When I am the one that was so unhappy. Not you. I left you that night because you turned away from me. Because… I thought you needed a little bit of space from me. From my expectations of … talking. But you are right. You didn’t know. And that was your answer.” She said quietly, as if there was a finality to her words that could not be argued with.

<Jesse Fforde> “Not everything is always going to be peaches and cream. We’re going to disagree with each other about things. I’ll do things that you hate and vice versa. No couple ever likes everything about each other, and the differences are what makes things interesting. But if I ever have a problem with you, if you’re going to take it this badly--” he says, gesturing to the blood that soaks Grey’s shirt, and which is smeared in different places around the room “--then it’s… it’s not ******* fair, is it? You questioned me. You wanted to talk. You turned away before I did, but that’s besides the point. I turned away. If you wanted to keep talking, you make me,” he says. This all seems like common sense to him. If there’s something Grey’s done that he doesn’t like, he confronts her about it. Just like he’s doing right now. He doesn’t like the way she cuts herself but he’s not going to turn and walk away. Not again.

“You wanted to hurt me, so ******* hurt me. Do it, if it’s going to make you feel better. I’m a big boy, Grey. I can handle it. Or do you do this on purpose? Is this your way of hurting me? You hurt yourself instead because you think it’s going to make a bigger difference?” he asks. He almost feels as if they’re going around in circles and none of this is going to make nay kind of difference. These aren’t solutions, just jagged words that don’t mean much, in the end. Telling Grey to do something a particular way is only a way to try to control her, and it’s something she should rail against. No one should submit themselves to being controlled.

But Jesse’s not thinking properly right now. His thoughts are all mixed up with the last few nights, and the new things that he had learned about himself. There’s a control that he wants to let go of, and he’s being selfish, here with Grey. He wants her to join him. He doesn’t want her to be upset, or sad. He doesn’t want her to hurt. Surely he’s said it before, though? Get angry, rather than sad?

If it’s habit, of course she’s not going to be able to just stop. It’s a habit that needs to be broken, be erasure of the past.

“How do I find her? Give me a hint. How do we get her to come to you? You can cut her instead. Would you do that? Would that give you some kind of relief? Cut the woman who’s fault it is, that you always think you’re the problem…”

<Grey> “You do not talk back. You do not raise your voice. You do not touch what is not yours. You do not ask questions. You are to be seen and not heard. You are to do what I say if you know what is good for you.” Grey recited the rules. The creed. The code to live by in the house with that monstrosity of a mother. Going against the grain. She was going against the grain with everything she had been taught where Jesse was concerned. She clenched her fists tightly together underneath that t-shirt. Nails were digging in hard to the backs of her hands. She was wringing them. Slithering wet, slick and sticky skin together. Blood coated, cut flesh that reminded her as the tender wounds healed that she … healed.

As her skin itched and the temperature in the room felt warm, Grey’s eyes seemed to fade for a moment as she remembered the past. He wanted to have her scream at him? He wanted her to talk back to him? He wanted her to push and punch and kick and yell and demand his attentions? She almost could not comprehend the differences.

She yelled at Micah. There was passion and protection and look at the way that had ended. Of course, though, Micah was not her lover by any means. No, in the briefest and most factual of descriptions, Micah was more like that father figure. He was the man that had helped Grey out and had encouraged her in the Quarantine Zone as she was only strong enough to pulverize Zombies.

“Not a bigger difference. No difference. I don’t have to focus on the pain here.” She said quietly, coming to answer Jesse’s question. Soon, her arms were once more inside the holes of her t-shirt and she was motioning to her chest. She gathered a shaky breath and bit on her lower lip. She chewed it, mercilessly for a moment. “It doesn’t hurt so much here when I can hurt here.” Again, Grey pressed a hand to her heart. To where that organ used to beat and then motioned to her arms. To her back where the bullet holes still bled a little bit. Dried blood was caked on her flank and she ignored the urge to itch the slowly healing wounds.

“I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to know if she’s still alive. I tried to burn down the house I grew up in so I wouldn’t have to know. I don’t want to know. All she ever wanted me for was a trust fund. Was for money. Money, Jesse.” Grey’s voice was devastated. So many emotions were displayed within that word that the woman sitting before him looked hollow. She looked like he had first found her, the loss in her eyes but a smile on her face. Young and naive, but in truth so very old.

“We are in Canada. I lived in West Virginia. I’ve been all up and down the seaboard. Maybe… Maybe if we took out an ad. An engagement ad? Or if they flashed my face on the news for some reason. Mother was always watching the news when she wasn’t stoned or too drunk to realize what time it was.” Did she want her mother dead? Did she want to cut her? Did she want to hurt her?

She wanted her tortured.

Part of her wanted to inflict as much pain upon the woman as she had upon her.

Was that the strength that Jesse was looking for in her?

She shifted, cold and tired. Sore and too bloody to care, Grey closed her eyes once more against the wall. Even with Jesse there. Even with his disdain at her presence… It comforted her.

<Jesse Fforde> At first Jesse thinks Grey is talking to him. His head cocks to the side, until he catches that tone; that tone anyone gets when they’re repeating something someone else has said. The frown furrows his brow and he listens, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and one hand wrapped around the opposite wrist. The urge is there to do what he always does; to pick her up and take her to the bathroom. To clean her up. To reassure her that things are different now. But how many times does he have to tell her? How many times does he have to repeat this process to get Grey to understand that he is not like her mother, and that everything her mother tried to instil is a lie?

Something else has to happen. Something has to give. Something explosive and violent. Something to shake Grey’s foundations more than Jesse himself ever has. Grey constantly admits that she does not feel like she is enough, or good enough. And in that moment, Jesse feels the same. He is not enough for Grey. She might think that he is, but if she cannot let go of her past and take hold of the future with new sight, then he is not enough. He has changed nothing for her. Something else has to be done.

Grey says she doesn’t want to see her mother, but then gives Jesse the information that he needs. He leans forward, on his hands and knees as he crawls that little bit closer. As he hovers in front of Grey, he licks his lips and gets that gleam in eye. He doesn’t touch her.

“And the pain you feel there,” he says, pointing to Grey’s chest, to her heart, “is all a misconception because of her. Have you believed nothing I have ever told you? All those times I told you I wouldn’t leave and yet you still think I will,” he says, quietly. Still angry. Not coddling, this time. It’s not a repeat, but an accusation.

“Clover kissed me. I could have kissed her back. I could have well and truly left you. I could have but I didn’t and I won’t, unless you continue to choose to have no ******* faith in me,” he says. It’s not something he’d planned to say. As soon as it’s out of his mouth he is horrified, but he can’t deny it. He has to choose to have hope that she’s willing to fight for what she wants. And that’s why he says it.

“You may not want to see her Grey, but we are going to find her and we--you--are going to rip her to shreds. If that’s what it takes,” he says, calculating and cold.

<Grey> Hatred. Pure rage. Sorrow. She could feel the twisting within her chest and it caused her the most excruciating pain. It caused the sweet hissing anxiety across her nerves. It felt like her skin continued to crawl at the thought of her mother. At the past. At the pain that she seemed to drown within. It was a vicious cycle and she didn’t know how to break free of it. Death? Even death couldn’t give her the bliss of an unknowing afterlife. Instead, she seemed to wallow in the horror of a past that she had so effectively blocked off as a young woman.

The dam had been broken when she had been cast into the coolness of the moon. Her chin, still tilted down and eyes that were now looking at the carpet seemed to glow with a fury of irritation. Jesse pushed. His gentle nudges had turned to perpetual shoves in the direction of getting over the loss of her childhood.

But in truth, was it just that? She had a bounty on her head. She had a unclaimed dowry and a mother that couldn’t touch it because it belonged to her no good, run away daughter. The longer that Grey sat there, the more the muscles in her jaw clenched. The mechanic barely realized that Jesse had come closer to her. He seemed so cautious, careful not to offer his physical reassurance to his hard, chilling words.

“I don’t think you will leave. I didn’t…” She snapped her eyes up to him, the pale and blood smeared face seemed to bloom into a broader contrast. Whatever blood she had left within her flesh seemed to drain right before Jesse’s eyes in a blink of his bright blue eyes. She stayed still. Deathly still. Clover had kissed him?

Did she just hear him right? Did he just sit across from her and admit that another woman had laid her lips upon his? She seemed to pull herself upright, the mental shields slamming down against the sudden physical sensation of her heart pounding within her chest. The realization that he had just confessed to her an indecency had her blood, half foriegn that night, pumping hard through her system. “You ******* ********.” Her breath was harsh, words uttered with a stark realization that perhaps that was why he kept his sudden distance from her.

All systems go.

“I’m going to rip YOU to shreds! And her!” She let out a scream that seemed to go with the sudden pure hatred of a woman that had called her a ***** to Jesse, yet couldn’t call her such a thing to her own face. The way her heart twisted in her chest wasn’t even cognizant of the way her brain burned with fury as she lashed out at the man she loves.

Her hand cracked him across the face before she even realized she moved. The sharp sound of Grey slapping the tacky, bloodied palm across his cheek was only moments before her hands shoved him. She sent him backwards with all her might. “You are MINE!”

<Jesse Fforde> Jesse can feel it before the words even sink in. Before he even says the words, he can feel that storm brewing around Grey; a pressure system developed within, soon to push out into her surroundings. The way he looks at her is expectant, eager almost. It crosses his mind that he shouldn’t be treating her the way he is. Pushing and poking in order to get some kind of reaction. Again, he realises his own selfishness. This should be about what Grey wants, not about what Jesse wants. Of course he wants to help her to overcome her past because he thinks it will be better for her, like shedding an old skin that constantly itches and aches because it is too small, and too dead. At the same time, however, he is fully aware that he wants something from Grey. He wants her to be happy so he can be happy. Because he is unwilling to walk away, as much as he may have threatened it. And if she does not change, and if he does not walk away or abandon her, then he, too, will be plunged into eternal misery.

Anger is superior to misery. It isn’t as toxic. It can be vented far easier than misery.

He wants to point out that she had. At least, that’s the impression he had gained. She had said that, hadn’t she? She had thought he had left her, had walked away from her. And he had thought the same thing about her. Is it too far a leap to assume the pain she feels on the inside is due to a wrong assumption? Though he knows that it’s not just that. She had explained that, too. Now, and in the past. Her pain is due to something far more complex. A self-loathing that consumes everything else. Self-esteem that is non-existent, and which must be built up from scratch.

This time, the slap should have been expected. The second slap in as many nights, and still Jesse had not seen it coming. The reaction is much the same; momentary shock as his skin absorbs the sharp sting, as he feels the welt burn. But there’s laughter, next. Laughter, even as her hands find his chest and with a shove, she pushes him off balance. He falls on his backside, his arms flung out beside him to catch his balance, his legs sprawling out in front.

That’s more ******* like it.

And he laughs. Because how can a man be worried when his woman’s anger is bookended by a claim? He is hers. He is hers. And maybe his selfishness is rearing its ugly head again. Maybe he’d been feeling a little doubt of his own. To witness her claiming him in such a furious passion reassures him. She will fight for him. That’s all he needs.

“You can rip me to shreds, but you leave her alone…” he says. Oh, he knows it’ll only inspire her ire, but he hadn’t done this to bring any harm to Clover--or vice versa, if Clover should choose to retaliate. He stays where is, sprawled, tense, ready to hold Grey back, if he needs to.

<Grey> Attraction. Desire. Lust. It all burned outright and ugly within Grey. It was something that was supposed to be cultivated and made beautiful between two people and suddenly Grey felt so much more than threatened. She felt jealous. She felt like she had when he told her about Anysel. About the woman that he just let use him and for what purposes other than sex? And this… This was only a kiss!

Her mouth was suddenly Sahara dry, causing her to choke out a humorless laugh to mock the man underneath her. He was laughing?! He was laughing! The ******* ********. He had told her that night in the garden that he didn’t know when he was going to Sire. He had reassured her that he could not share with her those details because he did not have them himself until that moment. And Grey was supposed to be satisfied with that?

What else could she say to him about that answer, reproached or not, other than that she understood? To be angry at a man with an addiction was being angry that a cellular phone needed electricity to work. The pain that rippled across her chest was quickly followed by a flood of fury. She brought her fists down onto his chest and crashed them against his pecks. Where Grey did not consider herself ever abusive; someone looking in on them could realize the situation could turn dire quickly.

“**** you! **** her! I’ll ******* RIP both of your lips off! I’ll touch her if I Goddamn want to! You just said SHE kissed YOU!” Grey snarled. Blood smeared. Her hands were coated in the sweetness that was her scent and she lurched herself up from the man underneath her. Where she had slammed him back, she was up just as quickly. It was, in that moment, as if she was on a mission.

“What did you do to have her kiss you?! Did you say sweet things to her or give her your ******* best smile?! Flirt?! Was it because you were pissed at me that you sought comfort in her?!” Grey was leaving the room. She was stalking towards the kitchen where she had laid her guns.

<Jesse Fforde> Jesse takes the blows. He knows he deserves them, in some small way. The ******** who is laughing at Grey’s misfortune. But this reminds him of that wrench. And she’s so much stronger, now. She can pack a bigger punch, and he’s certain that if he were to remove his shirt, there’d be bruises on his chest. He can feel them already as he rolls onto his hands and knees to launch himself up, to stride after Grey on her mission. He keeps his distance, circling a wide arch around her, but at least planting himself between Grey and the door. She is a wild thing, and he’s just waiting for the next volley.

“That’s it. It was all my fault -- I told her I was restless. She was angry with me, too, yeah? She ******* hates it when I sire new people, just like you do. Maybe I was just feeling grateful because she suggested finding a cure rather than just… staying angry. We went to the fair because she could see I needed to get out. I needed to do something. I’m going ******* stir crazy, Grey, staying inside all the time. I was having fun! Maybe she got the wrong impression. My fault! So you shoot me, not her. She knows she fucked up…” he says. He stands between Grey and her escape, his fingers loose and his arms by his side.

Maybe he’s gone too far, wanting these women to break and let it all out. Maybe he is a hypocrite, because he doesn’t always practice what he preaches. Maybe this time around he will. He’ll go without and he’ll let loose. He’ll wreak chaos. Controlled chaos, maybe. But chaos all the same. And maybe he wants Grey to be a little chaotic, too. To match his speed.

Wary of Grey’s anger he remains tense, but he takes slow steps toward her, arms held out, waiting to dodge and track, to tackle her if he needs to. To keep her and this discussion inside this apartment.

<Grey> “Your fault? Your fault?!” She repeated after him. Instead of sounding like a parrot, she sounded incredulous. Grey swung her arms wide, that long gun swerving and cutting a malicious path through the air. The mechanic might certainly have packed a powerful punch, but her words could be barbed. At least, of course, the rest of the family thought so. As she rounded once more upon him, she shoved the tip of the gun straight into her lover’s chest.

“Bull ****.” She said, words harsh upon the tip of her tongue. “You went to the ******* fair? Was it a date?!” Her words were off her tongue before she could even control it. As if, in the mechanic’s thoughts, that there was some sordid affair during the time that her fiance had been apart from her.

Thoughts pummeled through her brain, pictures of leashes and laughter. Pictures of these fair rides and clown cackling. Pictures and thoughts of Clover and Jesse holding hands and snuggling close together on the ferris wheel. She blinked harsh, as if trying to ignore the way Jesse demanded that it was his fault. She shook her head. The fly away hair around her face tickled against her cheeks and her temples. The heavy bun atop her head sagged from the weight of all of her hair piled atop. “**** you! Get out of my WAY!”

She was beyond pissed now. So angry, that the blood had boiled and caused a flush to her face. The redness blended quite nicely with the smears of blood across once pale skin. Swallowing harshly, her eyes were narrowed to slits and she shoved the gun’s tip harder into Jesse’s sternum. “She knew you were involved. She knew you are mine. **** her. And **** you. Get the **** out of my way!”

Her screams, had the walls not been soundproof, would no doubt have woken the neighbors on either side of them.

<Jesse Fforde> “I don’t know, Grey. Was it a date? I’m not sure I know what a date is…” he says. If her words can be barbed, then so can his. He should be telling her that it went nowhere. That, where once upon a time he would not have hesitated, this time there was no follow through. He did not kiss her back. They did not canoodle on the Ferris Wheel. That, instead, he’d clung to the edge of that carriage for his dear ******* life because he didn’t like the height, and the conversation they had on the Ferris Wheel was far from fluffy. He is more Grey’s now than he has ever been. He has been tried and tested and it is Grey who he remains loyal toward.

It doesn’t matter how much Grey screams, how much she nudges the gun up against his chest, he does not move. He feels the tightening in throat and the coiled tension of his body as it prepares for pain. He does not doubt that, in her current situation, Grey would not hesitate to shoot him. And if she hesitates to shoot him, she is more likely to shoot Clover twice. He does not move. Even if Grey ends up backing him right against the door, he remains steadfast in front of it.

“Where are you going to go? Do you even know where she is? She’s not at Larch. She’s avoiding me…” Jesse says. Even after the night before, even after he’d assured himself that Clover had not left the city, he doubts she’ll come and stay in one of the bunk beds at the house. He doubts very much that he’ll see her around Larch Court at all. He knows how to find her, with the ritual table. But he won’t be doing that for Grey.

“She knows. She knows I love you. She’s ashamed. She apologised,” he says. No, he does not inform Grey that Clover says she’d do it again. That she does not regret actually doing it. That she might feel the urge to do it again. That’s not important. Jesse shakes his head. “What does it matter what she does? I’m here. I’m here with you. Do you doubt me? Don’t you trust me?” he asks, his hands out to the side, still prepared to block Grey, to wrestle her back if he needs to.

<Grey> The sarcastic comment from Jesse’s mouth about not being sure what a date is, just makes Grey want to backhand him. The past has come up and engulfed the mechanic once more and she can remember just what it feels like the be on the receiving end of someone’s quick, cold swipe across the cheek that packed a powerful message of dislike. She curls her hands into fists and the right that was wrapped around the gun shook it harder against Jesse’s sternum.

Her eyes had been narrowed and all that she could see was red. Red. It was hot and heated and bloodied. Her heart twisted viciously within her chest and she could almost feel what it would be like to have the pounding waves of that heart beat clogging her ears instead of Jesse’s voice that tried to talk her through the rage that she was currently experiencing. Grey held her breath. From the screams moments ago to the rasping pants as if she was out of control, she now started to try and visualize just what it was she wanted to do.

Jesse was standing in her way.

She shoved the gun harder at him. The tip of it no doubt bruising his flesh and threatening to break the plate that helped hold his ribs from penetrating his own dead heart. For a moment, if she were to shoot her lover; she can see the aftermath of the gun fire. She can see the blood splattering from Jesse’s chest. She can see him falling down the now broken door. She can see the incredulous look on his face and feel the instant guilt that would just swarm her senses. And his pain. She would feel the incredible amounts of pain he would be going through.

Because, they were linked.

They were tied together.

Her eyes drift to look at the chopped up hand and arm that was holding the gun to him. She sees for an instant his indignant fury. Regret, maybe? Regret that he couldn’t stay away even if he wanted to? The gun’s bite into his chest lessens. She shakes the feeling of pity out of her head. Her own droplets of blood now had slowed, congealed by plasma and platelets and yet there were still deep lacerations into her muscles.

Would she avoid Jesse if she kissed him all those months ago? They had been together almost a year and a half now, and she wondered what his thoughts were. Yes, they were supposed to be bound. Sometime in October, Grey had decided at the beginning of the year. Why not wait? Why not enjoy the time that was leading up to the fall foliage and the sweetness within the air? Grey wondered if Jesse’s hurry was so he could have avoided instances like this. But, part of Grey’s thoughts were still so dark. She stepped into her lover. She didn’t quite touch him yet. Touch seemed to be something that was heinous for both of them at the moment.

Jesse’s questions swirled in her head. His accusations rang true. But, he was only here because he thought she was hurting. He was only there because he thought something could have been seriously wrong with her. There was something wrong. Maybe he had been right to come. But, she didn’t ask for him. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to see him. She was feeling something that made sense.

When she ran that jagged piece of glass over her arms and hands, she was feeling something with purpose. Because the past wasn’t supposed to have purpose, was it? It was something where lessons were learned and a person moved on. Why… Why though was she sticking to the past instead of able to let go of it? Why was it ruining her current happiness with the man that only wanted to smile and have fun? He had found his voice. He had decided for himself what it was that had made him happy. He had changed so many things within his life and it was not in shambles.

He was not down on his knees begging the question of ‘why?’ No! He was out on dates with his progeny and allowing lips that weren’t hers to kiss him instead. Was she supposed to be impressed and thankful that he didn’t kiss Clover back? Was she supposed to think this was the end of such a situation if he told her that Clover had apologized and felt ashamed by her actions. Grey almost smirked and gave away the plan. Her hands reached up and gripped Jesse’s shoulders. Not his flesh. Not his skin. She refused to be distracted by that bond that was screaming for the touch that cements them together.

“I do not doubt you. Furthermore, I do trust you.” Her voice was quiet. It was almost deathly cold. It was detached of those furious emotions a moment ago where she told Jesse to go **** himself. There was no makeup on her face. There was no smudged eyeliner or smeared mascara. Blood. Most of it was Grey’s blood. And she wore her own blood well, smothered against her face, neck, and skin. Hell, she was still bleeding tiny little trickles of blood from the bullet holes in her back.

“What I don’t trust… Is her.” And with that confession, Grey’s fingers had clenched in Jesse’s shirt and she went down. She tossed the man up and over her chest as her back hit the floor. She pushed him, with her boots, as far as he could go with from motion she had watched countless times on defense mechanisms and wrestling matches. It took only moments. Where Jesse landed, she didn’t know. Behind her, somewhere, the thud and crash came. It would give her the precious moments to get out the front door.

Gun slung across her back, that front door crashed open. She was at the stairs in ten steps because it would take the elevator too long to be beckoned to her floor. Jesse had taught her a lot of things in this new life. Survival skills was right up there with hunting. Grey could walk for days. Now she didn’t even need to eat to survive. She flew down the first flight of steps. Rounding each landing, Grey’s fists clenched.

Hers. Jesse was hers. And she’d drill that into Clover’s wretched brain.
Six more flights to go.

The only thing that echoed in the stairwell was the sound of her boots hitting the cement, rubber edged stairs.

Five more flights.

Could it be possible to feel as if she were any more broken?

Four more flights.

Pain. Hurt. Irritation. Rage. It was all rolling up into a big ball inside of her now. She gripped the railing tighter with every step she was skipping to get down, down, down to the main floor faster.

<Jesse Fforde> Jesse does not regret what he said. He can see the spark that it ignites within Grey, and though this whole situation--the gun pressed up against his chest included--should make him anxious or angry or ashamed, he can’t feel any of those things. Why? Because it’s a relief. To see Grey angry, to see something stir in her that isn’t sadness is far too much of a relief. Again, Jesse feels selfish. He was selfish to chase Clover down to make sure she hadn’t left the city. Not because he has thoughts of cheating, but because Clover is family. He cares for her as much now as he had before, and the fact that she is still around, that she came back, that she has remains a part of this family despite how she must still be feeling now… but she has a tendency to get skittish. He had to make sure she hadn’t run. And he shouldn’t have. There’d been a fallout.

And now he’s here, and he’s using his interactions with Clover to inspire within Grey something, anything. Which had now no doubt driven an immeasurably large and unshiftable wedge between the two women; had put Clover in danger. Would give her another reason to want to run.

Jesse is not expecting the sudden movement. Grey had closed in and had admitted to her trust. Her hands on his shoulders, which were straight. He bends his face down toward her, his mouth dry, his body aching to be touched properly, and to touch hers. To pick her up and slam her against a wall. He’s still expecting to be shot. But he doesn’t expect to be thrown. But he is thrown. Like a cat, he tries to twist and catch his balance. His ribs grind and scrape over the edge of the step, the marble bruising and tearing the skin. But within seconds he’s on his hands and knees, fingers digging into the hard marble to push himself up. Grey’s out the door before he’s even on his feet.

But he doesn’t chase after her. He should, but he doesn’t. Although he doesn’t know whether he wants to go put his fist through the door, or whether he wants to laugh, he’s still not anxious. Grey is justified in her anger. He cannot tell her that she doesn’t deserve to feel it. His shoes squeak against the marble as he comes to halt in front of the door, his hands splayed against the edges of it, watching as it clicks shut.

What’s Grey going to do? What can she do? Jesse is almost certain that Clover won’t be at Larch Court. If she’s not there, if she’s not at home (does Grey even know which house is hers?) then what can Grey do? Wander around aimlessly? Turn the city upside down to find the other woman?

Jesse breathes. He doesn’t need to, but he pulls the breath in through his nose and releases it through his mouth. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against the wood. But what if Clover is at Larch Court? What if Grey finds her? Jesse takes two steps back. He turns to face the apartment. He takes another breath, closes his eyes again, and focuses on his fiance. She might not even have had the chance to reach the main floor, to startle that doorman with her bloodied and furious appearance. Jesse summons her right back into the apartment.

“No,” he says. His voice is cracked.

“No. You can confront her when you’ve calmed down,” he says, his voice stronger now, his hands curled into fists, and his own blood bleeding into his shirt where the skin had come free over his ribs.

<Grey> She can feel that tingling sensation at the back of her neck. She wants to ignore it. She chooses to continue to skip steps down the stairwell to haul mad *** towards the main lobby. Not even two more flights and she can feel the supernatural pull upon her very soul. Blood stills within her system and she tries to force herself to stay.

However, it isn’t an easy task and before her booted foot can stomp down upon the next rubber edged step of cement, she’s hauled back to the apartment. Her vision blurs, objects are shadowed. The pulling sensation to her Sire has her even more furious as she soon enough winds up directly in front of him.

She is furious. Her bright blue eyes are almost speckled with blood, the capillaries in her eyes burst from the fury she had barely contained in front of her fiance. She felt, in truth, as if she were acting like a spoilt child. As if her sister took away her favorite toy and ruined it by popping the Barbie’s head off or cracking an arm out of the fabricated plastic joint. She swallowed hard and brought her hands up again. They had been dirty, filthy with her own blood and scrunched so tight that the blood had actually congealed in the lines of her palms.

“NO!” She screamed at him. She screamed it so very hard that another could almost feel the temper tantrum vibrate that very word within their own stomach’s pit. “You are mine and she never should have laid a ******* hand on you let alone her lips!” Hate seemed to emanate from Grey’s pours; the wrath of Hell swarming around this woman who looked devastated.

“I HATE HER!” She bellowed. This display was something that no other person would have ever gotten to see. No one would be graced with this pure, unmasked form of the mechanic. Grey had often prided herself on nodding and smiling, on shoveling **** and opening her pockets to accept more. Only when they filled up did that temper bubble up. And now, her pockets held no more ****.

She was so furious that her skin prickled. It literally seemed to hold within a sense of preservation and the goosebumps that showed themselves seemed to last as if she were out within the frozen tundras of the dead of winter and wore only that t-shirt and jeans for hours instead of having a roof over her head and a Sire to yell at.

“You want to Sire?! Fine! Go ahead! You want a date?! Fine! Go ahead! You touch her ******* lips one more time I will kill you myself.” She vowed, her chest heaving as she stood there looking at him. The gun was still strapped to her back and she took not one, but two steps back from him. And she shook her head, almost in disbelief. “You want her? You can ******* HAVE her. Because I’ll kill her too.”

She seethed, turning away from Jesse as if she couldn’t stand the sight of him and tried to control the anguished sob that started to crawl its’ way up her chest. She’d rip her own throat out before she let him see her cry.

<Jesse Fforde> The display Jesse is greeted with toes the line between desperate and childish. At least, that’s how it seems to Jesse, who can only roll his eyes as Grey assumes what he wants. He knows he’s being selfish. He knows that. It is quite clear, in the forefront of his mind. The addiction, the need to sire had eclipsed all else, and he often searches for justifications. Choosing to believe that those around him will understand, and get on with their lives. He’d thought he was getting away with it. But now he has not just one, but two women in this family--one of whom is his fiance--falling to pieces. There are other causes for this, of course, but his constant siring seems to be a core problem.

As Grey turns away from him, Jesse reaches out to grasp her shoulder. Not roughly. Not enough to hurt her. But firmly enough to attempt to turn her around to face him. And, if she doesn’t, he’ll circle around in front of her. He wants to be able to look at her while they have this argument. He wants to be able to see every twist and grimace of her expression, now clouded and obscured so totally by fury that she is almost unrecognisable.

If Jesse is afraid of Grey, it’s not because he believes she could succeed in killing him. Even if she could, he is not afraid of death. No, if Jesse is afraid, it’s because Grey has the most powerful weapon. She has his heart in her hands. It doesn’t belong to him anymore. It belongs to her. She has the ability to throw it on the ground and stomp on it until it is just mush and splatter. If his family is his weakness, Grey is the core of it. She is the main weakness. And the one who has the greatest ability to hurt him.

“I do want to date. But I want to date YOU. Don’t you get that? I want to leave this apartment every now and again. I want to take a night off work. I want to … go skinny dipping or run riot through the mall. I want to take a ride out into the wilderness, to a safe clearing, and stare at the ******* sky for a while. I want to do these things with you but you don’t ever ******* want to. You just… stay here and pout and cry and curl up and sleep. You lock yourself in closets and I… I can’t do it anymore. I’m restless,” he shouts. His voice is a husk, but he manages to shout anyway.

And he is aware that it’s all me, me, me. He takes a breath, and pushes his fingers through his hair.

“I want you to be able to tell what the **** is wrong. It needs to be fixed. You don’t have to kill me and you don’t have to kill her because I don’t want her. I want you. But I need you to smile once in a while. You keep telling me that you don’t regret any of this but I keep thinking you’re just saying that to save me from guilt. Tell me what to do!” he bellows. They’ve been through this before. She always says she doesn’t know. But Jesse asks again. Because what else can he do?

<Grey> What is the problem? What is wrong with her? Why does she do this to herself? When she was human, she could push things deep. When she was human, she had walls that she could create that kept her sane. It kept her emotions locked away and now that chest of deep dark hurt and hatred seemed to be free. The chain that had been wrapped around that dusty, ugly malformed box was now lying upon the ground of her baser instincts and all the tension seemed to be wrapped around her spine with its inky fingers of depression and angst wrapped around her throat.

At the grip of his hand she shied away. She dropped her shoulder fast and turned around in such a way that she almost stumbled to lose her balance. Righting herself, a palm smeared against the middle of his chest and she gasped out, clenching his shirt and coating her sticky, nearly dried blood upon him. She looked… lost. She looked angry and irritable and confused all at once.

“You are my lover.” Her breath runs ragged from her parted, dry lips. Her chest rises and falls as if she needed that oxygen that her body should be repulsed by. Everything within her is churning, boiling on a high fire of fury and irritation. She laid claim to him. He is hers. Just, she thinks, she is his. Her hand stays clenched within his shirt at his chest. Even as the gun is plastered to her back and the ripe smell of powder emanates from it; the bullets fired were earlier in the evening and not now.

She takes his shouts and his words. She takes his irritation and his hurt and curls it inside of her. She takes his frustration and his wants and they all swirl inside of her. She chokes down the yelling. Almost, in such a way where his hoarse voice is her own and she can’t help but grab a few pants of breath and try to gather herself.

“Something broke inside of me. Something isn’t right since you turned me. I can feel everyone’s emotions. Happy. Sad. Disgusted. Anger. I didn’t have to feel that before. I knew it. But, now it is so much stronger. And I’m trying to deal with it. And I can’t help but… I can’t help but get caught up in the past. In memories. They make me feel bad. They make me… Not myself. I try to ignore them and I cannot. I try to make sense of the pain, but I can’t. And to feel pain for a reason that is physical instead of mental… Helps. It’s not your fault. I just don’t know how else to deal with it. If I could blank my mind, Jesse…. I would. If I could take away those years of memories, I would.” She whispered to him, her voice softens as she speaks.

It was crazy. In and of itself, her words were crazy. To truly feel and sense another’s emotions? Ridiculous. She started to unfurl her fingers from his shirt, her mouth so dry now. She was so thirsty. And she closed her eyes for a moment, starting to feel the way that her own shirt was sticking to her skin. Itching. Driving her crazy as her weight shifted in her boots and she picked on the hem of her shirt. Fingers were fidgety. “I don’t know what you can do. I don’t know how you can make it better. People… are overwhelming.” She says finally, not really sure how else to put it to him.

<Jesse Fforde> Jesse hasn’t been this close to Grey in a long time. He feels the way her fingers curl into his shirt, and he leans in to the touch. His feet shuffle forward just a little, hands rising to rub at Grey’s arms. It was instinct. It was what he knew. It was comfortable. It was home. His face fell forward, taking a deep breath in. All he could smell was Grey. The warmth of her, even though she was a vampire. The undead. Cold. There was still warmth to her.

“Something isn’t right... since I turned you,” he repeats, softly. It may or may not be his fault. Not directly. But it confirms something, at least. Something has changed, and it’s due to the turn. He turns his gaze away from Grey and narrows his eyes at the wall across the room. As if the white space will have some kind of answer. It would be too much to tell her to forget about the past. To just let it go. He’d done that before and it hadn’t worked. Something had to happen, right? Mind over matter.

“That’s why we have to find your mother, Grey. Or let her find us. You need to… put all those memories into something physical and that destroy that thing. Do you remember I told you about my Uncle? He killed my brother. I repressed that. For years. He threatened me. It took my voice. I killed him. I shaved away his skin, and I peeled off his nails, one by one. I flayed him, I neutered him, I ripped out his tongue and stabbed out his eyes. I did… so much, until I finally burned him.I killed him. He took away my brother. Twice. But that second death took away everything. And gave me my voice back. We can try. It could … we can try something,” he says, his grip tightening ever so slightly over Grey’s upper arms.

As for the rest of it, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how he can make other people less overwhelming. He has to wonder how in the hell she deals living with him, half the time. It might have made him laugh, and he nearly does. But then he frowns, a roiling in his chest clenching, like the rush of a tide against a beach before he physically tries to suck it back again, to lock it up.

“... I know that physical pain helps. I understand that,” he says. And Grey knows it, too. Except Jesse doesn’t ever hurt himself, not on purpose. He asks Grey to help. He pushes other people’s buttons until they push back. Preferably with sharp things. He nods and breathes in, as if sucking in that breath and holding it there might pen in the emotions, too.

<Grey> To feel Jesse’s hands upon her almost healed arms was something that was cathartic between them. The touch, the smear of blood, the heavy need within the air that swirled with anger and damnation. She wanted to lean into him further. She wanted to smash her mouth against his. She wanted to yank up his shirt and fist her hands against the pants upon his ***. She felt the swirl of angry need and the uncertainty between them fading away.

Those bright blue eyes of hers almost held a tint of green. Of envy and jealousy and hatred all mixed up to be one in the same. She couldn’t kiss him, not yet. Not when she knew that Clover’s lips had been on his. Not when she knew that someone else had touched him. Tarnished him. Taken him from her only in a sense that they had marred her man. She grimaced openly, eyebrows pinching together as the look upon her face reeked of pain and unhappiness for a pure moment’s breath.

It was slow, her head bobbed. Her chin dipped and it allowed the pulled up hair atop her head to feather down and tease her cheeks and neck. The fly-away lengths no longer contained by that sloppy bun from the tossing of her lover to the jaunt down the stairs had only to be drawn back to him by a bond that was unbreakable. She hated that. In that moment, she hated that she could be summoned to his side and her path to vengeance was thwarted by him. She still had violent images of dismemberment and ripping out organs piece by piece with Clover’s face attached to the body.

But, history was repeating itself - to a point, was it not? Only, Grey wasn’t Jesse’s already when they had fallen for each other. She was a human who had made him work in essence to get to know her. She never expected him to come back that second night. She never expected him to come back the third or fourth night, either. Until finally, one day… She found herself looking for him. Waiting for him. Hoping that he would cross the threshold of the garage with that damn smirk on his face and that expectant look in his eyes for her.

“I remember. I met you, just about that time. Your voice. I heard it. Husky. Cracked.” She whispered to him, the emotions that Jesse had and her own were twisted together and on the brink of destruction. To find her mother? To have her mother find them? All hell would come to a head for that meant that the woman couldn’t claim to the bank that she was dead. She stepped into Jesse, taking that moment to realize that he had, after all, been her security net. He was her sanctuary. He was the reason she kept herself within this city. He was her anchor.

She tipped her face up, smeared with that dried blood now. Her eyes were far, far away. Her face was slack yet held questionably a couple decades of pain. The throb was in her heart and wrapped around her very core. She rose up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss under his chin to his throat. One, soft kiss. And then, another. And then, another until teeth threatened at his neck and her canines raked across his flesh.

Physical pain for mental anguish. Was this why she couldn’t smile? Was this why she couldn’t let loose and have a good time? Because she was stuck in the past and too leery of the future? The only thing constant was change, and that would get her a beating a time or two when her mother didn’t appreciate Grey as she tried to broaden her very limited horizons. So, soon, she had her bloody, sticky arms wrapped up and around Jesse’s neck, clutching him to her chest as she tenderized the muscles of his neck with her teeth; yet not biting into him at the moment.

<Jesse Fforde> Jesse sighs.

He doesn’t have to be able to read Grey’s thoughts or feel the emotions bleeding from her to know what she’s feeling. There’s pain there. And anger. Hurt. And he had done a lot of the hurting in the last hour or so. He’s said things that needed to be said, that have been building up inside of him for months. His voice now rivals the voice he had worn when he met Grey. It always gets husky and broken and dry when they argue; he doesn’t want to argue. But he has to admit, it’s easier to get the point across.

When he sighs, though, he wonders whether he’s achieved anything. All the back-and-forth, the summoning, the barbed words. He had pushed at Grey on purpose. It’s too much to expect that one conversation would change anything, or that the change should happen immediately. It’s when Grey’s mouth is pressed up against his neck that a grimace of recognition passes over his features.

Who the **** has he become? Change? Why should she have to change for anyone? Hadn’t he walked away from Andras because he felt pressured to change, and to be someone he wasn’t? But if this is who Grey is, if this is who she will always be… if that woman at the start was a rare outlier who won’t show her face again? What does that mean? He doesn’t quite know how he feels about it. Jesse’s eyes close as he remains where he is, his feet planted on the ground, shoulder-width apart. His hands rest on Grey’s hips.

She hasn’t answered his suggestions. She comments upon her memory, but she says nothing else. Is this a ploy? Getting in close and threatening to sink her teeth into his neck in the way that he likes so much? Is she purposefully trying to distract him? Maybe that’s her prerogative. Though he does wonder why she would seek her comfort from him. He feels like a poisonous lecher. Like one of those overbearing men that demand too much. His head bows foreward, his forehead resting upon Grey’s shoulder. The muscles in his jaw jump and dance as his teeth clench. His fingers curl into fists around the cloth of her top, dragging it down.

He is torn. He says nothing. He’s said all he needs to. What else is there to say? He could apologise. But wouldn’t that make everything he’d already said moot? Wouldn’t that be disregarding every other argument? The words get stuck in his throat. He’s trying to figure out whether that’s a good thing, or whether that just makes him more of an asshole.

<Grey> The mechanic knows at the very heart of Jesse’s soul, he is right. She knows that he wants the best for her. She knows that he wants her back. He wants the light-hearted, easy going woman who was so apt to learn and change and be cognizant of everything around her and open to new experiences instead of the hermit that catered strictly to her own inner world within the circle of what was now Fforde.

Perhaps, part of the reason that she did not interact too much within the family was because she did not know how to deal with others. She was a miserable only child, growing up devoid of much socialization in the forced aspect that her only goal was to get great grades to please the horror of that mother figure. One wrong look or one wrong word and she’d be cracked across the face before she could blink. Tears only made it worse and when a child creates a place to hoard emotion inside themselves; one didn’t question the stoic nature of an adult very leery for any type of constant - let alone, repetitive interactions with the same person.

She was miserable. She was a miserable, ugly Vampiric being to him and their family. As she took her lips away from his flesh and let her cheek rest against his very shoulder for a moment, she knew that she had to do something. She had to change, and obviously shed the skin that Jesse was tired of seeing. That skin was the same ol’ same ol’ dark, depressing exterior with nothing, but concerned frowns and pitched forehead wrinkles of labels like Vapid ***** and fingertips reigning her way of complete chaos. *****. Some might wear such a title proudly, but to Grey, it was obvious that it was something unbecoming.

Grey had earned every title. Her sharp words and her immediate defense of others came from where? She should have, in hindsight, kept her mouth shut and that fake plastic smile on her face that her mother had ingrained into her. Seen and not heard, echoed within her mind just then as if right on cue from the banks of the matronly memory. Yet, Jesse wanted her to retaliate. He wanted her to get mad. He wanted her to get angry and … look where it got her?

Some accepted her anger and others did not. Some accepted her stern words, her defiant beliefs of walking through the fire for an ounce of forgiveness while others just slammed doors and screamed. Grey was a walking contradiction, though true to her word; actions spoke louder. This mechanic had turned out to be a complete disappointment to him. Disgusted, no doubt with her monotoned ways, there was no doubt that he sought out companionship with his other progeny.

That very thought was like a knife to her heart and she slowly peeled herself away from her fiance. He deserved better. As the thoughts slowly began to formulate within her mind, that sad smile came to her lips. So, she lifted a sticky, blood coated hand to swipe just ever so lightly down his jaw. He was right. She had to do something about herself. She had to get to the bottom of this painful agony that held her back from others. And in essence, Grey had to find out if Jesse even wanted someone so ugly as her.

“I’m going to go get cleaned up.” She said softly, stepping back from him and moving off to the side. As if, in essence, that he had been touched by another woman. As if, in truth, he really was marred with their touch upon his flesh. In lips that she almost kissed. Invisible claws of jealousy and rage started digging into her chest again, denied vengeance. She dropped the gun off at the couch as she walked on by to the bathroom.

The anger with him had been depleted.

<Jesse Fforde> Jesse doesn’t feel things the same way that Grey does. He can’t stand in the presence of another person and know what they are thinking via their emotions, surging from their skin. What does it feel like to her? Is it some kind of electric energy? Can she feel how conflicted he is, now? A spark had ignited when her anger was prominent; a smile had been on his lips and hope had coiled in his chest. These kinds of arguments, in the past, had led to the ruination of clothing, as they ripped and tore the flimsy barriers from each other’s bodies. Anger that had led to sex, a physical bond that had never failed them.

This time, that didn’t happen. This time, Jesse didn’t want this issue to be shoved aside in favour of physical pleasure. Is it a mistake? He doesn’t want them to devolve into another argument, another prickly avoidance of climax because Grey refuses to allow Jesse to use protection. He doesn’t want to be distracted by the touch of Grey’s skin against his, or the sound of the gasps passing her lips. When she nuzzles against his neck, he does not encourage. He stands perfectly still, until Grey shifts and moves away from him.

To himself, Jesse pretends that he knows how he feels, and what he is doing. But he doesn’t know what he is doing, or what he should do. The love that he feels for Grey has not gone anywhere. It has not lessened, in favour of anything or anyone else. The frustration is real, however. And with each passing night, he feels that something is slowly breaking. He knows that it’s his fault. He knows that he is being a hypocrite; he is being selfish. These things that he wants but he has no right to demand. He can’t force Grey to change, or to be someone she’s not.

But he has to admit it to himself. He’s not sure how much longer he can stand it. One can love someone while also wanting to be apart from them, can’t they? Already he can feel his heart splitting at the seems, imagining how life might be without Grey. He wouldn’t want to lose her. But what would she do without him? She wouldn’t stay, would she? She’s said it before. She stayed for him. Who else does she really know? It is true that Jesse spends a lot of his time away from Grey; he spends a lot of his time with his other progeny, and with their progeny. Now, he hardly keeps company with anyone outside of the family. He would prefer, of course, if Grey were at his side when he was getting to know the members of Fforde.

He had said, once, that he would run away with Grey. He would sacrifice everything for her. Is that still true? As Grey leaves his side, the space before him bereft of her presence, his face contorts into a pained expression, lips curled and eyes narrowed. His head bows, his face in his hands.

It still isn’t right. He knows that. Things have not been fixed. They are worse. He has made it worse. But he will not abandon Grey. Not now, not ever. He follows her to the bathroom. Leaving the door open, quietly, without a word, he helps her to remove her bloodied clothes. Although the bath is new, there are still memories attached to this room that he’d prefer to forget. Still, he turns on the taps. Not scalding, but not lukewarm. A good temperature in between. The tub begins to fill, the steam begins to billow.

It doesn’t matter if they’re fighting. It doesn’t matter if things aren’t right. Jesse loves Grey. A fact that has been repeated, oh so many times. And he will help her, now. Like he has always helped her. And like he always will. Even if they clean, and dry themselves, and end up sleeping in separate rooms. It doesn’t matter. He will help her, now, unless she forces him away.

<Grey> With her hands empty, and her back to her lover as she walks away, Grey can feel the heaviness of emotion being to weigh her down. Within herself, Grey can only comprehend the swirl of emotions from others. Her own are nothing. They are a background hum to the painful sparks of electrical shocks that are running through her system. Her emotions are the salt to her wounds and Jesse’s are the sun to her flesh. She knows she has failed him. She knows that she has brought him full circle. Grey wonders, for a moment, what would have happened that day on the Andras Crow if she had kept her mouth shut.

Defeated, Grey didn’t close the door. She couldn’t bear to have a physical barrier between the emotional one that was already erected between them. Her head was throbbing. Her clothes were plastered to her, half stuck to her skin and mocking her for her inability to control something as her own reaction to what her life had become. She needed to learn control. She needed to learn how to deal with others and deal with her own thoughts upon the same wavelength.

The love that she has for Jesse has morphed into something far beyond just lust and compassion. It has snaked its way into her physical being. It has wrapped itself around her heart and buried itself into her very genetic makeup. He was the other half of her soul and they both had caused each other pain. Bruised and lovingly battered, she didn’t flinch at the touch that she only became aware of as Jesse had exerted pressure upon the sticky cotton clothing covering her. An apology wouldn’t make it any better.

Tears would mean nothing.

Angry words could only hurt them.

Physical blows had been taken between the mechanic to the tattoo artist and she hadn’t even taken into account she could have broken something more than bones.

She moved into the bath, sitting forward and hunched over. Her hair was sloppy and pulled up atop her head. The water would turn milky pink from the combination of soap and blood. They would work in unison. They would work as a pair. As a team to quietly attest and clean the mess that she had created. Her chest hurt. It physically hurt and if there could be some very sign of the emotional toll her body endures; Grey is sure Jesse would be horrified.

Lost. Dejected. Loved.

Her entire body seemed to burn with the conviction that she had to change. And as she helped Jesse to pull back the sheets upon their bed, eyes hooded and heavy with exhaustion, she still could not bring herself to say anything. She could not bring herself to launch into any arguments or questions. She was so thirsty. She eased back onto the bed. Her hands did not turn Jesse away. Instead, she reached up and pulled the pillow down as she inhaled to reassure herself that Jesse was still there. She busied her fingers by gripping the sheets and willing herself to sleep.

She would not want to discourage him. The bed was his, ultimately. She tried not to chide herself. She tried not to berate herself. She tried to just close her eyes, ignore the taunts in her mind about worthless wastes of space and she brought her hand up to cover her only ear exposed to the air as if that would stop the torments of a body-less voice.

She agreed with Jesse that she’d have to take care of her mother, but she could not let him be a part of it. Her mother was her problem. Her mother’s history might not be able to be undone, but she could certainly crush what was left and put it into a box and much like her lover liked to do - burn it.