C L O V E R
We should talk.
Those three little words had her doubting every word, every sentence, she’d constructed to try and explain away his insecurities and his doubts and his jealousy. Dressed in a sleeveless t-shirt and black leggings, she could have made the meeting anywhere, but she chose the apartment they shared. The conversation deserved the privacy of their apartment, their little recess in such a large world, and she needed the comfort of knowing that there were so many steps between him and that door, between him and the fadeportals. No more secrets. They kept no more secrets. And yet she found herself wanting to keep just one, just two, just three. She took the initiative because she knew she needed to take the initiative, as if their relationship, just reinforced, would suddenly turn to shambles. Clo didn’t want it to get that bad again; she told herself that she never wanted to fall victim to insecurities, to allow him to fall victim to insecurities. And so she had to tell Jesse about Trigg.
Trigg wasn’t a secret worth keeping. Nothing had happened. Nothing would have happened. And yet she felt the blood slosh around in her gut. Nerves, she told herself, just nerves. She’d sired two, Runi and Song, so close together, and she meant to lure Trigg into the fold. Three. Three of them. And she wanted more, so many more. She had to have four more. No, five more. The blood made a violent churning and she had to empty the contents of her stomach into the toilet. Clo stumbled into the bathroom, lifted the lid, and vomited up her most recent meal, a middle-aged man by the name of Richard. She gagged. She dry heaved. If it weren’t for the fact that she’d thrown up in the toilet, she might have tried to consume the mess all over again. That thought repulsed her. She slammed the lid on the toilet, flushed, and brushed her teeth. The taste of old blood was worse than anything. The time she’d wasted did nothing to help her gather her thoughts.
What the **** was she going to say? After she finished brushing her teeth and placed her toothbrush back in its spot, she pressed her palms to the edges of the sink and leaned there. She searched the mirror for her reflection, but she saw shadows dart from side to side, from left to right. Athena had gotten the raw facts, everything that Clo couldn’t say to Jesse. Athena always got the raw facts. Athena knew more about what went on in Clo’s mind than Clo did, more than likely.
“I met someone,” she said, reciting her email, verbatim, aloud. “You’d hate him. He’s rude. He’s a thrill-seeker. He’s a blood thief.” Clo raked her fingers through her hair and then pulled it back into a messy ponytail. After she finished, she stopped and stood there, skipping right to the end of her email. “I’m only making trouble for myself, aren’t I?” ‘Tit for tat,’ he’d said, those words echoing in her mind. Clo made her way into the living room and settled on the couch, but she replayed the words over and over again. The email. Trigg’s words. Jesse’s possible overreaction.
J E S S E
In the text he’d said that he was interested, and it wasn’t a complete lie. And yet, he had reservations. Clover was doing as he had requested; she was communicating with him, though he didn’t understand what she was trying to say. It was egotistical to think that he was all she could want or need, that he could fill every gap and void in her heart and soul. What was he doing wrong that he couldn’t? But he’d be a hypocrite if he told her she shouldn’t need anything else. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d needed a family. He needed many over a few. This wasn’t any different, was it? Clover was a woman. They’d both been human. Maybe this was nature’s way of playing a cruel trick; the biological clock still struck twelve, and progeny were the closest thing to children, weren’t they? Wasn’t that why some vampires opted to call them childre?
Jesse took the cash from the customer; a deposit for a design they’d just agreed upon. The design had been filed away and the date put in the calendar for the first session. It was going to be a sleeve, Star Wars themed. The guy looked to be around thirty-two years old; he was toned, looked after himself, could probably take care of himself, too. And yet Jesse saw the way his shoulders sagged, a sigh of relief, as soon as he was out of the parlour and out of Jesse’s presence. He smirked, before he remembered where he was going.
He’d followed his customer to the door and flicked the sign to ‘closed’. It took five minutes to tidy up and to flick off the lights, to lock the front door and the side door. He slipped into the locker room before using his tome, holding the weathered leather in his palm as he whispered the words he knew by heart. Within half a second he was standing in the middle of Limbo. He filled his lungs with air, mind violently skipping over all the different possibilities. He wanted to know. He was interested. He wasn’t going to dismiss Clover’s needs, and he was going to dismiss the notion that he could fill all of them. He forced serenity unto himself, and walked through the door of the apartment with a smile on his face.
“Clo, you—oh there you are,” he said, seeing her on the couch as he dumped his keys in the bowl by the door and peeled off his jacket to toss over the back of said couch. He dropped down beside her and pressed a greeting kiss to her temple.
C L O V E R
If she were human, she might have been sweating, her palms might have been clammy; instead, she laced her fingers, just to keep from fidgeting, and then angled her body so she could look at him. The kiss had made her even more nervous, if it were possible. He seemed so ******* happy, so ******* content. She wanted to change her mind. She wanted to stick to the basics and rely solely on her secrets, yet again. After all, she kept secrets for a reason, to spare the both of them. Athena hadn’t offered Clo advice, though Clo hadn’t expected a reply in the first place. Athena placated her or reassured her, whenever a reply did come through. Clo didn’t need such things then. Not even Athena’s words would have helped the situation, or so Clo told herself. She didn’t realize how long she sat there, the awkward silence building, until she finally opened her mouth.
“His name is Trigg and I want to sire him.”
The way she introduced the subject just begged for questions. Why had she presented his name first? Why had she presented it in such a way that seemed to beg for some type of approval? Maybe she meant to draw Jesse in, to make him a part of whatever game she’d decided to play, whatever complicated maze she’d entered. And it was a game. And it was a maze. Normally, her games ended in death, but she meant to alter the rules, just as she’d altered the rules for Song, just as she’d altered the rules for Runi. Tell yourself it isn’t different, Clover. Tell yourself he’s normal, Clover.
“He’s the one that blinded me,” she added, her hands clenched so tightly that she felt as if anymore strength would shatter the bones. “He might be the one Ysmir shot.” She led Jesse a little further down the rabbit hole, as if retracing the fall would somehow help them both understand what had happened. Clover also felt lost. Outside of the cavern, she felt too vulnerable. She felt dirty. She felt guilty. She felt wrong. But they were communicating, she reminded herself. They were pulling out all the stops and preventing any secrets from blossoming between them. Even if it was hard, even if it was uncomfortable, she had to press forward.
J E S S E
If they were happy and normal and both equally content, this would be the point at which Clover returned the kiss. Perhaps to the temple, but that would be too formal. Maybe to the corner of his lips, or his lips proper. A peck. Honey, I'm home! What did you do with your day? No, given their proclivities, Clover might climb onto his lap, pleasantries passed with the promise of something more later.
But there was still something there, something they had to whittle down and destroy to become that kind of couple. The happy kind. Was it a pipe dream? Did such a thing exist? Had Jesse ever seen it? He blinked and turned, twisted on the couch so that he could face Clover, one knee bent and up on the cushion, one elbow resting on the back of the couch. A breath of air dropped from his nose and he arched a brow.
“Trigg…?” he asked. Why did that name sound so familiar? Trigg. Trigg. He repeated it ten times then shook his head. It would come to him, eventually. No point dwelling on it until it came to him. “Okay…” he said, waiting for Clover to continue. Uneasiness coiled in his gut; he remembered the promise he had made and he had to try to cling to it. He already knew Clover’s methods were different. Now it was his turn to try to understand them.
“Did you enjoy it, when he blinded you?” he asked. He closed his eyes. Scolded himself. Was that what he meant to ask? It’s where his thoughts had naturally meandered. It was a shock even to him that he managed, for now, to keep his voice calm, even—even if his body had stilled, unmoving. Their bodies sat perpendicular, their knees a finger-width apart. They didn’t touch. “What does he have that you’re missing?”
C L O V E R
No, she hadn't enjoyed it, but she waited. She wanted to be as patient as he seemed, to give him all the time he needed. But with every word, she felt worse. This is how you make him feel, her mind reminded her. She viciously fought against those thoughts, but when she looked at him, at the way he closed his eyes, at the way he saved that question for last, he seemed tired. Tired of the games she so loved to play. And she couldn't blame him. Her methods were questionable, at best. She would have been furious, if he hunted the way she hunted. But she excused her behavior; she excused her methods. She was wrong to do so.
“It scared me, when he blinded me. I hate being without my sight. I wanted to kill him. I went back and threatened him. And then we ran into one another again. I didn't stop stalking him, especially not when he'd overstepped his boundaries,” she frowned, her expression clearly showing her distaste. And then they'd met again. They'd met again and again. Clo didn't know why she didn't surrender, probably because that wasn't her style. Letting him win wasn't an option, and it was between winning and losing.
“He just reminds me of us, and I want that. He can be rude. He shows thrill-seeking behavior. He's a wolf in sheep's clothing,” she explained, an excited smile soon blossoming on her face. “You'll love him.” And yet she doubted those words as soon as they were spoken. “You'll probably hate him,” she corrected herself. “He's a blood thief, and I,” she stopped, sighed, and longed to retract the beginning of that sentence, all of that sentence. “I give him my blood in exchange for his blood.”
“It's no different than when I used to sell it on the streets,” she quickly defended, “and I can stop whenever I want to, whenever you want me to. If you want me to.” Clo didn't want to stop, but she could, and she would, if Jesse disapproved. “He's fucked up. He's great. I want that. I want the mess.” She didn't know that she'd begun to tap her fingers on her thighs. She just wanted him to touch her, to support her, to agree that they needed a little more chaos. But she feared he'd focus on her giving her blood to him. He’d misunderstand.
J E S S E
She wouldn't be able to see the way Jesse bit the inside of his own lip. He'd been waiting for her to say yes, she had enjoyed every second of it, and it was a relief when the answer was different. The relief was short-lived. Deep down, Jesse hated that he hadn't found the ****** then, hadn't pushed for more information. He could have been angry that he was only hearing about this obsession now, when it had been going on for so long. On the other hand he could understand. Why would she tell him? He'd only have taken away her fun. Even now, it wouldn't be too hard. He had a name. An occupation, of sorts...
Trigg. Again, it tugged at the back of his mind, a memory barely there, an encounter almost lost among the numerous encounters Jesse had each night. Whenever he was at work. Serpentine.
"You found something that was missing..." Jesse started, trying to get it straight in his mind, unable to focus on vague half-memories in light of what Clover had just said, of what she'd just told him. He was trying so very hard to remain calm. He didn't even move to breathe, except what air he needed to form words. He was trying to figure out whether she'd actually answered his question, and what it meant. "You like it when people take your blood, is that what's missing? No, can't be. Once you turn him, unless he's a necurat, that'll be gone. You want... mess? Is that what's missing? Should I stop trying to ..." he laughed, then, the sound mirthless and cold. His struggle to remain calm had slipped. Why was it so hard to try to understand? Why was it so hard to listen, to try to remain unbiased, as if he had no stake in this at all? Because he did have a stake in it. And it felt like what Clover wanted was the complete opposite to what Jesse was giving. It was the complete opposite to what Jesse himself wanted.
"I hate him and I haven't even met him yet. He reminds you of us? Are WE missing? How do you do it? Do you meet in a quiet bar and slash your own wrist so you can bleed into a cup for him? How does it work?" he asked. Did he really want to know? Was that the question he should have asked? He couldn't take it back, now.
C L O V E R
She watched and listened, waiting for his calm demeanor to slip out of place. When he laughed, she cringed. He’d made everything about him, and she couldn’t blame him. He made the circumstances about his own achievements and shortcomings, when Clo had never once considered those things. Or had she? Had she really been looking for some sort of happiness outside of her marriage? Absolutely not. Clover loved Jesse. She didn’t want him upset. And yet she upset him. She always seemed to upset him. They had more miserable moments than they had happy ones. It was astonishing how they managed to make things work, and maybe it had something to do with his work and her hobbies. Maybe their schedules kept them involved in other things enough to distract them from their own mess of a marriage. But Clover loved that mess of a marriage. She wanted to step back to the night of her surprise and start all over again. She wanted to prolong the silence and have him hold her in his arms. And they’d laugh. ****, they’d laugh. And everything would be alright again.
“It’s not about what you are or aren’t doing. I’m happy with you, Jesse -- I love you. He reminds me of us because he’s daring, he’s artistic, he’s a sarcastic little ****,” she explained. No longer did she want to reach out for him, to have him reach out to her. She kept to her self-assigned space. If she could have curled up tighter, made herself smaller, she would have, but that would have inhibited their conversation. Clo wanted so badly for him to understand her. He just didn’t. She remembered a time when he understood her so well, when she thought he’d finally unravel the mystery and she’d never have to explain herself, that she’d never have to feel like the odd girl out.
“It’s only happened once now.” The beginning, yes, the beginning. Every story had one. “I asked him if he ever went home, and he said he was busy. He was busy drawing me.” Just in case he thought to interrupt, she held up her hand to indicate that her silence meant nothing. She had more to say. “He’d painted red blood, and that made me smile, so I corrected him. I told him I bleed black. I offered to show him. Something happened--he fell,” she frowned, eyes narrowed as she recalled the whole scenario over again, “and then he was bleeding. I told him he smelled like a mixture of sweet and sour. And then he offered an exchange, his blood for my blood. And I said yes. There was no bar. There was no cup.” She felt she had a right to know things from his perspective, so she tried. She reached out, figuratively. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Please.”
J E S S E
Drawing. With that one word, with that one occupation, it suddenly hit Jesse. The piece of the puzzle fell into place. Trigg. Yes, it had only been a short conversation but a conversation nonetheless. He’d given Jesse his card; Jesse had looked up his artwork, and had been surprised at his talent. For a guy who spoke some weird language that Jesse could barely understand. The conversation had been so short, the interaction So strange that Jesse hadn’t got a fix on the guy. He hadn’t liked him, hadn’t hated him. There was too little time to tell. And there he was, the memory now stark in the forefront of Jesse’s mind.
“Golden eyes, scrawny. Covered in tattoos,” Jesse described him. “Says weird things. Slang words from a different language?” he asked. He wanted to be sure it was the same guy. And somehow putting a face to the name calmed him. Why? Maybe it was resignation. She had found something that was missing. Jesse, too, was scrawny and covered in tattoos. He sucked in a breath, shoulders squared.
“I’m thinking, Clo, that I still don’t understand. I’m thinking…” he exhaled. He let go of the anger and focused, truly, on the issue at hand. That something missing, if it had nothing to do with him… it sounded a whole lot like…
“… that I’m worried. Is it the progeny? You think by siring it’s going to fill some gap? Do you… I mean when you hadn’t sired for a long time, did you start wanting to kill yourself…? I’m not being insensitive, I’m just… I’m worried.” He’d suddenly flipped; he’d taken a different approach. He tried to take himself out of the equation.
C L O V E R
So the two men had met, at one time or another. Clo didn’t know whether that irritated her or relieved her, so she let him continue speaking. After he finished his description, she nodded at him, but did nothing else. She didn’t know what to say. He’d met Trigg. He had to have some idea of how the man acted, right? Or maybe the meeting had been too brief. Maybe they’d simply met in passing. Asking seemed out of the question, especially when the direction of the conversation shifted. No longer did he worry about himself. He’d turned things around onto her. Clo should have welcomed the change, the movement from Trigg to Jesse to Clover, but she wasn’t sure. His questions left her feeling uneasy. Had he peered into her head lately? Maybe he could see every part of her.
“I just needed one,” she began, slowly so as not to lose herself or her train of thought. “I just wanted one,” she amended. “But I couldn’t take just one. I needed two. I had to have two. I needed Runi and Song. And now I need Trigg. I just need one more and then I’ll stop,” she reasoned. “I won’t sire anymore.” Even she didn’t believe the words, not with the nonchalant way in which she spoke. She just lacked too much conviction. “I just need something and this helps. I’m always one step closer. It’s like siring makes everything okay again.” There was a sigh, followed by the overwhelming need to turn the conversation around again. She felt as if she were under his gaze, like being beneath a giant spotlight. What if she passed inspection? What if she failed? “What does it matter, if I sire a lot? It’s not hurting anyone. None of mine actually give a damn about one another.” And it didn’t bother her at all. She turned people for her own pleasure, for them to look to her, not to each other, not for each other. Maybe that was a mistake, but she didn’t see it as one.
“I’m not suicidal,” she stated. Clo stopped to think about her turnings and how she felt. They made her feel better, but that didn’t necessarily mean there was a correlation between her depression and her turning rate. “I’m not,” she added, feeling another refusal was needed. “I’m fine.” He’d made her doubt herself again. She was turning people close together, without much planning at all. Song should have died. Runi should have died. Trigg should never have happened. She wasn’t hunting and changing her mind. Clo was actively seeking childer. “You think I’m fucked up, don’t you? That there’s something wrong with me. Are you going to ask me to stop?”
J E S S E
It started to make sense, kind of. Jesse leapt to conclusions like an absolute pro, and he wanted to slap himself for not seeing it earlier. Why it should suddenly have cropped up, he didn’t know. What could the cause of these things be? He hadn’t even decided whether his issues were magically inclined, a curse that he had rid himself of. He didn’t know whether it was mind over matter. But if it was something that could be passed on from sire to childe, through blood, was it possible that it might have been some dormant thing in Clover that had suddenly sparked to life?
It made Jesse feel both better and infinitely worse, if this was the answer. Better, because it wasn’t Trigg that she needed, but something intangible that his presence could provide. It had nothing to do with the man himself, but the bond that she shared with him. But, Jesse had to go through hell and back to release himself of the desire, the need. Clover claimed it was hurting no one, but eventually **** would hit the fan.
“You can’t sire people and force them to fill the gap. I know this, because I tried. I can’t call you fucked up. It’s how I felt. You remember? I kept talking about this thing that I needed and siring always made it better, for a time. I don’t care how often you sire, I don’t. I’d be a hypocrite if I did. I just… disagree with the terminology. This… taking blood and giving it back and sharing, sounds so ******* intimate and I don’t like it. I’m imagining him pinning you to some filthy sewer wall, his hands on your body and I just… want to rip his ******* eyes out of his head,” he said, fingers closed into a fist, his sentence meandering from cool concern to a clench-jawed growl.
“If I lecture you it’s only due to experience. Every person I’ve sired recently have accepted it. It’s been a result of some combination of accident and their choice, and it’s been calmer. I’ve been happier. If you force people only because you want them, it’s not… I’m not sure how it’s going to fill a gap if they all end up loathing you for it…”
C L O V E R
His words angered her. Of course she could force people to fulfill her needs, her wants, her desires. Forced turning or not, they belonged to her; they owed her their lives, for she could have simply ended them. She could have snapped their naps and left their bodies to rot in some dumpster. She could have! She chose to save them though. She chose to gift them with vampirism. Instead of ignoring his words or resenting him for them, she did her best to listen, to pay attention to him, and to recall the times when he’d struggled with a siring addiction. But things had been different back then. His progeny had been extremely possessive, a thing she could no longer deny. Her childer lacked that quality, didn’t they? Weren’t they all too wrapped up in their new lives to give a damn whether she created more vampires or not? She didn’t care, did she? Jesse always had to make her question herself. But when he circled the conversation back onto their previous topic, she immediately pushed those thoughts aside in favor of getting angry.
“Yes, I let a human man pin me to the filthy sewer wall and have his way with me!” Her voice rose, but she levelled it off and merely hissed the last few words. Then she frowned, her arms crossed over her chest. Her sarcasm likely wasn’t wanted, but he had insulted her, whether he knew it or not, whether he meant to or not. “If you dislike me sharing my blood, then I won’t share my blood with him anymore. No excuses. No argument. But you’re the only man I want pinning me anywhere and doing anything. I shouldn’t have to tell you that, but I will.”
She tried to calm herself in the way that he’d calmed herself. She focused on other things, like the fact that he’d handled it much better than she’d thought. Things could have gone much worse. That thought seemed to relax her more than anything. Things hadn’t gone as planned, and that was a good thing. She’d expected him to walk out, really. She probably would have, had the tables been turned. “I could have killed them. They could have died. It’s really a gift,” she defended, her shoulders lifting for a shrug, “so they should be happy. They should be thankful. They’ll appreciate me and enjoy my company, or I’ll disown them.” Her brows furrowed, she tried to explain herself better, but the words never seemed to come out right. She ignored Crimson and he seemed perfectly fine, though she’d never admitted how much it meant to hear from him sometimes, just to know he was still alright. “I haven’t run into a case that complicated,” she admitted, “but it might happen.”
J E S S E
Jesse’s lips pressed into a thin line. Clover’s anger was out of place. How often had she got jealous for no reason? She hadn’t told him what she’d pictured, but the jealousy had been there. In spades. Not just with women. With everyone. And Jesse understood. It implied a lack of trust. But if she could get jealous, then so could he. “If jealousy is a form of flattery then you’ve got it in spades, and I’m allowed a taste,” he said. It was merely an aside, and it wasn’t the focus of their conversation. He swatted her anger aside like it was an annoying fly. On any other night he’d have placated her with his lips and his hands. He’d have pinned her to the couch and given her no leeway to move. But he wasn’t finished.
“Pretty sure when I sired you, I called it a gift. I forced it on you, said you should love it. You remember the hell you gave me? Did you accept it as a gift? Did you appreciate it from the get go? You… you want to be human again. I read your journal. Why would you be so determined to call it a gift when the only thing stopping you from taking a possible cure is the fact that I wouldn’t?” he said. He’d never actually talked to Clover about the cure; he’d not mentioned to her that he would, in fact, make that sacrifice. If it was truly what she wanted, if she wanted it with all her heart… he’d hate it, but he would do it.
And maybe he wouldn’t hate it. Maybe he’d enjoy settling down and having babies, and putting this darkness and brokenness behind him. He hadn’t thought about it, because he honestly didn’t believe there was a cure. He believed there was a weapon, and that they wouldn’t be human again. They’d be dead. For good. “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just offering my advice based on my own experiences. It works better when it’s something they want—you and I aside. That’s all I’m saying.”
C L O V E R
He really had to take her back to that night, the night when they first met. She’d been on the run. She’d been looking for an escape. He’d plucked her from the dirty sewer and slapped her into a new world, one she never could have imagined, and did she flourish? She supposed so, in a way. Back then, back at the beginning, she’d thought it a curse because of the difficulties that came with being a vampire. She never got to say goodbye to anyone or anything. He’d ripped her from her life and given her a new one, all without asking. Didn’t she do the same? And yet she loved Jesse. Everything had worked out, in the end. Nothing said that her forced turnings would hate her; nothing said that her forced turnings would love her. There were multiple possibilities. She just couldn’t find the empathy within herself, the emotions needed to understand things from the standpoint of her victims. She only saw her experience and her feelings and her wants. She let him continue because she had nothing to say then. She heard his words until they were no more, and then she continued gathering her thoughts.
“It took time,” she admitted, replying to his first questions. “You didn’t turn me because you wanted me. You turned me because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I’d seen too much. I wasn’t an extraordinary person you’d found on the streets. I was nothing. You cleaned up a mess. That’s how I felt. That’s what I thought.” She had to think to recall some of the nights directly following her turning, but those thoughts lasted for some time. Clo had always wanted to be special, to be different -- she still struggled with that desire.
“There are a few things I miss about being human, things that I’ll never get back, things that I’ll never be able to have. I’d rather not talk about them. But it was more than just you that made the thought of becoming human again impossible. What would we do? Continue slaughtering people, setting fires? And hope we don’t get caught and tossed in jail? I enjoy what we have now and I realized it was selfish, too selfish for me, to throw everything away for possibilities. But,” she struggled then, “maybe I just lack the compassion and concern needed. I don’t care if I rip everything away from my victims. I just want them to want me, to need me. I feel like if they ask, they won’t appreciate it as much. Or maybe I just enjoy watching the cruel reality set in. It’s probably a mixture of things, Jesse.”
J E S S E
"Isn't it better to give them back a life that that someone else stole from them, then? Use that. Tell them they'd be dead without you, and not by your cause," he said. What two legs did he really have to stand on? Balthazar hadn't been planned. Jesse had let his brother stumble out of the tattoo parlour with the hope that the bite wouldn't take, that the guy would just wake up like from a nasty hangover and get on with his life. But it hadn't worked out that way. Raegan? If he'd stopped and called an ambulance she might have lived, but instead he'd hastened her death. Sometimes he felt she only forgave him because he'd ripped the heart out of her persecutor's chest. It hadn't been an act of heroism. It was just the blood lust, the frenzy taking control. Marisol, even. She'd been teased and tortured and threatened by the both of them, though in the end her life had been saved, and it was neither of them who'd taken it from her to begin with.
"Look, I don't understand the way you go about it. I had a need and I didn't pick and choose who I wanted to sire. I plucked them off the street and provided flimsy excuses as to why I thought they'd work. And... I still turned you," he muttered. "I could have killed you for being a witness, as I've killed so many others for just being a witness, but I didn't. I turned you because there was something there, something in you that I wanted to keep, and preserve. I wouldn't have done it otherwise," he said. What had it been? The tattoos, he thought. He'd admired the art on her skin, the sleeve of vibrant colour that would have taken hours of pain and endurance to collect.
"And if we ... if it was a cure, if it wasn't just a weapon, if we wouldn't die and it wasn't some trick. If it was real, if it was... maybe it wouldn't be possible. You won't talk about it, but I will. Maybe it'll help you, maybe it wouldn't..." he reached out. Finally, he took Clover's hand, the one with the wedding ring on it. He held her hand, admiring it before bringing it to his own cheek. "Maybe we'd be able to give it all up, this violence. If we were human, maybe we wouldn't need it. We would settle down. Have children," he said. The last two words were a whisper, barely there. And he couldn't look her in the eye when he spoke them. He'd looked away, focused on some random stain on the couch. Probably blood. Probably his. Hers was black, and it didn't stain.
C L O V E R
Trigg didn't matter. Forced turnings didn't matter. When Jesse took her left hand, she inhaled sharply, as if she'd still considered them on separate continents, divided by a vast expanse of land and sea. Maybe the cure would have been great. Maybe the cure would have been a success. Maybe everything wrong with her head had something to do with her turning and the cure would have fixed all of her problems. But he had to mention children. She watched him, waiting for him to gather the nerve to look her in the eyes, but he continued looking elsewhere. She lightly nudged his cheek with her left palm, trying to get him to look into her eyes.
“Would you really want that?” The words hurt, not because she wanted different but because they just hadn't really broached the subject as honestly as he had just moments ago. She didn't want to get into specifics, to talk about how she wondered where they'd go, what they'd do, but she couldn't help it. Kae had already reassured her that Jesse would be there, and she'd been right. Of course.
“I wondered where we would go,” she admitted, raising her other hand so she could caress his cheeks, so she could just enjoy touching him. “I wondered what we would do for a living, if we'd get boring jobs, if you'd still be a tattoo artist. I wondered if you'd want kids. How many. If you'd be a good dad. If I'd be a good mom. I didn't want to say something because I thought you'd be upset. I thought we'd get so much more than we have now. And it'd be ours.” She closed the distance between them to lightly kiss his lips. She didn't need him thinking the cure meant everything, but it came with the promise of something different, a world where they weren't sadistic killers, where the hunt didn't matter. She'd be able look herself in the mirror again and see someone worthwhile -- no, simply someone different. “Not more,” she fixed her words, finally. “Something different.”
It didn't matter, but she felt so desperate to say the words. “I'm sorry I can't give you a family.”
J E S S E
With the nudge, Jesse looked. It was like losing a staring contest, but the opposite. Who could avoid each other's eyes the longest? Jesse lost. The conversation had done them good, though Jesse was still jealous. He was still angry. He liked Trigg less than he did before, and hadn't answered Clover when she'd suggested she stop giving her blood. Her blood was precious and, just like she was possessive over who could harm Jesse or not, he too felt possessive of her blood. It was only his to see. Only his to spill, when that specific kink was craved. That the blood thief had harmed Clover at all should mean instant death, but Clover's attachment had provided the lucky human with a force field. Jesse could only hope that some other ill luck found the guy.
But they'd reached a kind-of accord. The topic and changed and shifted until they'd landed here; the ultimate communication. A topic that hurt them both equally; it was a tease, offering them hope for something they could never have. At least, in Jesse's opinion it was a pipe dream, a farce. The building had been blown up, and who knew who had a hold of the cure, now? What if no one did? What if the hope of it was just... gone, up in a puff of smoke? He'd never pinned anything on it. He hadn't allowed himself hope so that the loss of it couldn't hurt him. His fingers tightened around Clover's hand. While she'd kissed him his eyes and closed, his lips welcoming hers like her kiss was a soothing balm, a medicine he didn't know he needed. Now, his eyes snapped open, the brightness of them sharp. He had a habit of reprimanding her when her apologies were not required.
"That's not on you," he said. "I made you this. It should be me apologising because I took that ability from you," he said, his voice a harsh whisper, gruff and broken as it always was. "I imagined I'd still be an artist. You'd be a writer. We'd move overseas, far from this place. Your home. We'd have two kids. Boys. Twins," he said. He'd thought about it. Sometimes, now he had the ability to withstand the sun, he suffered insomnia. Sometimes, these were the things he thought of while he lay awake, staring at the ceiling. He didn't have to answer her first question. Would he really want it? He never thought so, until it became an impossibility.
We should talk.
Those three little words had her doubting every word, every sentence, she’d constructed to try and explain away his insecurities and his doubts and his jealousy. Dressed in a sleeveless t-shirt and black leggings, she could have made the meeting anywhere, but she chose the apartment they shared. The conversation deserved the privacy of their apartment, their little recess in such a large world, and she needed the comfort of knowing that there were so many steps between him and that door, between him and the fadeportals. No more secrets. They kept no more secrets. And yet she found herself wanting to keep just one, just two, just three. She took the initiative because she knew she needed to take the initiative, as if their relationship, just reinforced, would suddenly turn to shambles. Clo didn’t want it to get that bad again; she told herself that she never wanted to fall victim to insecurities, to allow him to fall victim to insecurities. And so she had to tell Jesse about Trigg.
Trigg wasn’t a secret worth keeping. Nothing had happened. Nothing would have happened. And yet she felt the blood slosh around in her gut. Nerves, she told herself, just nerves. She’d sired two, Runi and Song, so close together, and she meant to lure Trigg into the fold. Three. Three of them. And she wanted more, so many more. She had to have four more. No, five more. The blood made a violent churning and she had to empty the contents of her stomach into the toilet. Clo stumbled into the bathroom, lifted the lid, and vomited up her most recent meal, a middle-aged man by the name of Richard. She gagged. She dry heaved. If it weren’t for the fact that she’d thrown up in the toilet, she might have tried to consume the mess all over again. That thought repulsed her. She slammed the lid on the toilet, flushed, and brushed her teeth. The taste of old blood was worse than anything. The time she’d wasted did nothing to help her gather her thoughts.
What the **** was she going to say? After she finished brushing her teeth and placed her toothbrush back in its spot, she pressed her palms to the edges of the sink and leaned there. She searched the mirror for her reflection, but she saw shadows dart from side to side, from left to right. Athena had gotten the raw facts, everything that Clo couldn’t say to Jesse. Athena always got the raw facts. Athena knew more about what went on in Clo’s mind than Clo did, more than likely.
“I met someone,” she said, reciting her email, verbatim, aloud. “You’d hate him. He’s rude. He’s a thrill-seeker. He’s a blood thief.” Clo raked her fingers through her hair and then pulled it back into a messy ponytail. After she finished, she stopped and stood there, skipping right to the end of her email. “I’m only making trouble for myself, aren’t I?” ‘Tit for tat,’ he’d said, those words echoing in her mind. Clo made her way into the living room and settled on the couch, but she replayed the words over and over again. The email. Trigg’s words. Jesse’s possible overreaction.
J E S S E
In the text he’d said that he was interested, and it wasn’t a complete lie. And yet, he had reservations. Clover was doing as he had requested; she was communicating with him, though he didn’t understand what she was trying to say. It was egotistical to think that he was all she could want or need, that he could fill every gap and void in her heart and soul. What was he doing wrong that he couldn’t? But he’d be a hypocrite if he told her she shouldn’t need anything else. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d needed a family. He needed many over a few. This wasn’t any different, was it? Clover was a woman. They’d both been human. Maybe this was nature’s way of playing a cruel trick; the biological clock still struck twelve, and progeny were the closest thing to children, weren’t they? Wasn’t that why some vampires opted to call them childre?
Jesse took the cash from the customer; a deposit for a design they’d just agreed upon. The design had been filed away and the date put in the calendar for the first session. It was going to be a sleeve, Star Wars themed. The guy looked to be around thirty-two years old; he was toned, looked after himself, could probably take care of himself, too. And yet Jesse saw the way his shoulders sagged, a sigh of relief, as soon as he was out of the parlour and out of Jesse’s presence. He smirked, before he remembered where he was going.
He’d followed his customer to the door and flicked the sign to ‘closed’. It took five minutes to tidy up and to flick off the lights, to lock the front door and the side door. He slipped into the locker room before using his tome, holding the weathered leather in his palm as he whispered the words he knew by heart. Within half a second he was standing in the middle of Limbo. He filled his lungs with air, mind violently skipping over all the different possibilities. He wanted to know. He was interested. He wasn’t going to dismiss Clover’s needs, and he was going to dismiss the notion that he could fill all of them. He forced serenity unto himself, and walked through the door of the apartment with a smile on his face.
“Clo, you—oh there you are,” he said, seeing her on the couch as he dumped his keys in the bowl by the door and peeled off his jacket to toss over the back of said couch. He dropped down beside her and pressed a greeting kiss to her temple.
C L O V E R
If she were human, she might have been sweating, her palms might have been clammy; instead, she laced her fingers, just to keep from fidgeting, and then angled her body so she could look at him. The kiss had made her even more nervous, if it were possible. He seemed so ******* happy, so ******* content. She wanted to change her mind. She wanted to stick to the basics and rely solely on her secrets, yet again. After all, she kept secrets for a reason, to spare the both of them. Athena hadn’t offered Clo advice, though Clo hadn’t expected a reply in the first place. Athena placated her or reassured her, whenever a reply did come through. Clo didn’t need such things then. Not even Athena’s words would have helped the situation, or so Clo told herself. She didn’t realize how long she sat there, the awkward silence building, until she finally opened her mouth.
“His name is Trigg and I want to sire him.”
The way she introduced the subject just begged for questions. Why had she presented his name first? Why had she presented it in such a way that seemed to beg for some type of approval? Maybe she meant to draw Jesse in, to make him a part of whatever game she’d decided to play, whatever complicated maze she’d entered. And it was a game. And it was a maze. Normally, her games ended in death, but she meant to alter the rules, just as she’d altered the rules for Song, just as she’d altered the rules for Runi. Tell yourself it isn’t different, Clover. Tell yourself he’s normal, Clover.
“He’s the one that blinded me,” she added, her hands clenched so tightly that she felt as if anymore strength would shatter the bones. “He might be the one Ysmir shot.” She led Jesse a little further down the rabbit hole, as if retracing the fall would somehow help them both understand what had happened. Clover also felt lost. Outside of the cavern, she felt too vulnerable. She felt dirty. She felt guilty. She felt wrong. But they were communicating, she reminded herself. They were pulling out all the stops and preventing any secrets from blossoming between them. Even if it was hard, even if it was uncomfortable, she had to press forward.
J E S S E
If they were happy and normal and both equally content, this would be the point at which Clover returned the kiss. Perhaps to the temple, but that would be too formal. Maybe to the corner of his lips, or his lips proper. A peck. Honey, I'm home! What did you do with your day? No, given their proclivities, Clover might climb onto his lap, pleasantries passed with the promise of something more later.
But there was still something there, something they had to whittle down and destroy to become that kind of couple. The happy kind. Was it a pipe dream? Did such a thing exist? Had Jesse ever seen it? He blinked and turned, twisted on the couch so that he could face Clover, one knee bent and up on the cushion, one elbow resting on the back of the couch. A breath of air dropped from his nose and he arched a brow.
“Trigg…?” he asked. Why did that name sound so familiar? Trigg. Trigg. He repeated it ten times then shook his head. It would come to him, eventually. No point dwelling on it until it came to him. “Okay…” he said, waiting for Clover to continue. Uneasiness coiled in his gut; he remembered the promise he had made and he had to try to cling to it. He already knew Clover’s methods were different. Now it was his turn to try to understand them.
“Did you enjoy it, when he blinded you?” he asked. He closed his eyes. Scolded himself. Was that what he meant to ask? It’s where his thoughts had naturally meandered. It was a shock even to him that he managed, for now, to keep his voice calm, even—even if his body had stilled, unmoving. Their bodies sat perpendicular, their knees a finger-width apart. They didn’t touch. “What does he have that you’re missing?”
C L O V E R
No, she hadn't enjoyed it, but she waited. She wanted to be as patient as he seemed, to give him all the time he needed. But with every word, she felt worse. This is how you make him feel, her mind reminded her. She viciously fought against those thoughts, but when she looked at him, at the way he closed his eyes, at the way he saved that question for last, he seemed tired. Tired of the games she so loved to play. And she couldn't blame him. Her methods were questionable, at best. She would have been furious, if he hunted the way she hunted. But she excused her behavior; she excused her methods. She was wrong to do so.
“It scared me, when he blinded me. I hate being without my sight. I wanted to kill him. I went back and threatened him. And then we ran into one another again. I didn't stop stalking him, especially not when he'd overstepped his boundaries,” she frowned, her expression clearly showing her distaste. And then they'd met again. They'd met again and again. Clo didn't know why she didn't surrender, probably because that wasn't her style. Letting him win wasn't an option, and it was between winning and losing.
“He just reminds me of us, and I want that. He can be rude. He shows thrill-seeking behavior. He's a wolf in sheep's clothing,” she explained, an excited smile soon blossoming on her face. “You'll love him.” And yet she doubted those words as soon as they were spoken. “You'll probably hate him,” she corrected herself. “He's a blood thief, and I,” she stopped, sighed, and longed to retract the beginning of that sentence, all of that sentence. “I give him my blood in exchange for his blood.”
“It's no different than when I used to sell it on the streets,” she quickly defended, “and I can stop whenever I want to, whenever you want me to. If you want me to.” Clo didn't want to stop, but she could, and she would, if Jesse disapproved. “He's fucked up. He's great. I want that. I want the mess.” She didn't know that she'd begun to tap her fingers on her thighs. She just wanted him to touch her, to support her, to agree that they needed a little more chaos. But she feared he'd focus on her giving her blood to him. He’d misunderstand.
J E S S E
She wouldn't be able to see the way Jesse bit the inside of his own lip. He'd been waiting for her to say yes, she had enjoyed every second of it, and it was a relief when the answer was different. The relief was short-lived. Deep down, Jesse hated that he hadn't found the ****** then, hadn't pushed for more information. He could have been angry that he was only hearing about this obsession now, when it had been going on for so long. On the other hand he could understand. Why would she tell him? He'd only have taken away her fun. Even now, it wouldn't be too hard. He had a name. An occupation, of sorts...
Trigg. Again, it tugged at the back of his mind, a memory barely there, an encounter almost lost among the numerous encounters Jesse had each night. Whenever he was at work. Serpentine.
"You found something that was missing..." Jesse started, trying to get it straight in his mind, unable to focus on vague half-memories in light of what Clover had just said, of what she'd just told him. He was trying so very hard to remain calm. He didn't even move to breathe, except what air he needed to form words. He was trying to figure out whether she'd actually answered his question, and what it meant. "You like it when people take your blood, is that what's missing? No, can't be. Once you turn him, unless he's a necurat, that'll be gone. You want... mess? Is that what's missing? Should I stop trying to ..." he laughed, then, the sound mirthless and cold. His struggle to remain calm had slipped. Why was it so hard to try to understand? Why was it so hard to listen, to try to remain unbiased, as if he had no stake in this at all? Because he did have a stake in it. And it felt like what Clover wanted was the complete opposite to what Jesse was giving. It was the complete opposite to what Jesse himself wanted.
"I hate him and I haven't even met him yet. He reminds you of us? Are WE missing? How do you do it? Do you meet in a quiet bar and slash your own wrist so you can bleed into a cup for him? How does it work?" he asked. Did he really want to know? Was that the question he should have asked? He couldn't take it back, now.
C L O V E R
She watched and listened, waiting for his calm demeanor to slip out of place. When he laughed, she cringed. He’d made everything about him, and she couldn’t blame him. He made the circumstances about his own achievements and shortcomings, when Clo had never once considered those things. Or had she? Had she really been looking for some sort of happiness outside of her marriage? Absolutely not. Clover loved Jesse. She didn’t want him upset. And yet she upset him. She always seemed to upset him. They had more miserable moments than they had happy ones. It was astonishing how they managed to make things work, and maybe it had something to do with his work and her hobbies. Maybe their schedules kept them involved in other things enough to distract them from their own mess of a marriage. But Clover loved that mess of a marriage. She wanted to step back to the night of her surprise and start all over again. She wanted to prolong the silence and have him hold her in his arms. And they’d laugh. ****, they’d laugh. And everything would be alright again.
“It’s not about what you are or aren’t doing. I’m happy with you, Jesse -- I love you. He reminds me of us because he’s daring, he’s artistic, he’s a sarcastic little ****,” she explained. No longer did she want to reach out for him, to have him reach out to her. She kept to her self-assigned space. If she could have curled up tighter, made herself smaller, she would have, but that would have inhibited their conversation. Clo wanted so badly for him to understand her. He just didn’t. She remembered a time when he understood her so well, when she thought he’d finally unravel the mystery and she’d never have to explain herself, that she’d never have to feel like the odd girl out.
“It’s only happened once now.” The beginning, yes, the beginning. Every story had one. “I asked him if he ever went home, and he said he was busy. He was busy drawing me.” Just in case he thought to interrupt, she held up her hand to indicate that her silence meant nothing. She had more to say. “He’d painted red blood, and that made me smile, so I corrected him. I told him I bleed black. I offered to show him. Something happened--he fell,” she frowned, eyes narrowed as she recalled the whole scenario over again, “and then he was bleeding. I told him he smelled like a mixture of sweet and sour. And then he offered an exchange, his blood for my blood. And I said yes. There was no bar. There was no cup.” She felt she had a right to know things from his perspective, so she tried. She reached out, figuratively. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Please.”
J E S S E
Drawing. With that one word, with that one occupation, it suddenly hit Jesse. The piece of the puzzle fell into place. Trigg. Yes, it had only been a short conversation but a conversation nonetheless. He’d given Jesse his card; Jesse had looked up his artwork, and had been surprised at his talent. For a guy who spoke some weird language that Jesse could barely understand. The conversation had been so short, the interaction So strange that Jesse hadn’t got a fix on the guy. He hadn’t liked him, hadn’t hated him. There was too little time to tell. And there he was, the memory now stark in the forefront of Jesse’s mind.
“Golden eyes, scrawny. Covered in tattoos,” Jesse described him. “Says weird things. Slang words from a different language?” he asked. He wanted to be sure it was the same guy. And somehow putting a face to the name calmed him. Why? Maybe it was resignation. She had found something that was missing. Jesse, too, was scrawny and covered in tattoos. He sucked in a breath, shoulders squared.
“I’m thinking, Clo, that I still don’t understand. I’m thinking…” he exhaled. He let go of the anger and focused, truly, on the issue at hand. That something missing, if it had nothing to do with him… it sounded a whole lot like…
“… that I’m worried. Is it the progeny? You think by siring it’s going to fill some gap? Do you… I mean when you hadn’t sired for a long time, did you start wanting to kill yourself…? I’m not being insensitive, I’m just… I’m worried.” He’d suddenly flipped; he’d taken a different approach. He tried to take himself out of the equation.
C L O V E R
So the two men had met, at one time or another. Clo didn’t know whether that irritated her or relieved her, so she let him continue speaking. After he finished his description, she nodded at him, but did nothing else. She didn’t know what to say. He’d met Trigg. He had to have some idea of how the man acted, right? Or maybe the meeting had been too brief. Maybe they’d simply met in passing. Asking seemed out of the question, especially when the direction of the conversation shifted. No longer did he worry about himself. He’d turned things around onto her. Clo should have welcomed the change, the movement from Trigg to Jesse to Clover, but she wasn’t sure. His questions left her feeling uneasy. Had he peered into her head lately? Maybe he could see every part of her.
“I just needed one,” she began, slowly so as not to lose herself or her train of thought. “I just wanted one,” she amended. “But I couldn’t take just one. I needed two. I had to have two. I needed Runi and Song. And now I need Trigg. I just need one more and then I’ll stop,” she reasoned. “I won’t sire anymore.” Even she didn’t believe the words, not with the nonchalant way in which she spoke. She just lacked too much conviction. “I just need something and this helps. I’m always one step closer. It’s like siring makes everything okay again.” There was a sigh, followed by the overwhelming need to turn the conversation around again. She felt as if she were under his gaze, like being beneath a giant spotlight. What if she passed inspection? What if she failed? “What does it matter, if I sire a lot? It’s not hurting anyone. None of mine actually give a damn about one another.” And it didn’t bother her at all. She turned people for her own pleasure, for them to look to her, not to each other, not for each other. Maybe that was a mistake, but she didn’t see it as one.
“I’m not suicidal,” she stated. Clo stopped to think about her turnings and how she felt. They made her feel better, but that didn’t necessarily mean there was a correlation between her depression and her turning rate. “I’m not,” she added, feeling another refusal was needed. “I’m fine.” He’d made her doubt herself again. She was turning people close together, without much planning at all. Song should have died. Runi should have died. Trigg should never have happened. She wasn’t hunting and changing her mind. Clo was actively seeking childer. “You think I’m fucked up, don’t you? That there’s something wrong with me. Are you going to ask me to stop?”
J E S S E
It started to make sense, kind of. Jesse leapt to conclusions like an absolute pro, and he wanted to slap himself for not seeing it earlier. Why it should suddenly have cropped up, he didn’t know. What could the cause of these things be? He hadn’t even decided whether his issues were magically inclined, a curse that he had rid himself of. He didn’t know whether it was mind over matter. But if it was something that could be passed on from sire to childe, through blood, was it possible that it might have been some dormant thing in Clover that had suddenly sparked to life?
It made Jesse feel both better and infinitely worse, if this was the answer. Better, because it wasn’t Trigg that she needed, but something intangible that his presence could provide. It had nothing to do with the man himself, but the bond that she shared with him. But, Jesse had to go through hell and back to release himself of the desire, the need. Clover claimed it was hurting no one, but eventually **** would hit the fan.
“You can’t sire people and force them to fill the gap. I know this, because I tried. I can’t call you fucked up. It’s how I felt. You remember? I kept talking about this thing that I needed and siring always made it better, for a time. I don’t care how often you sire, I don’t. I’d be a hypocrite if I did. I just… disagree with the terminology. This… taking blood and giving it back and sharing, sounds so ******* intimate and I don’t like it. I’m imagining him pinning you to some filthy sewer wall, his hands on your body and I just… want to rip his ******* eyes out of his head,” he said, fingers closed into a fist, his sentence meandering from cool concern to a clench-jawed growl.
“If I lecture you it’s only due to experience. Every person I’ve sired recently have accepted it. It’s been a result of some combination of accident and their choice, and it’s been calmer. I’ve been happier. If you force people only because you want them, it’s not… I’m not sure how it’s going to fill a gap if they all end up loathing you for it…”
C L O V E R
His words angered her. Of course she could force people to fulfill her needs, her wants, her desires. Forced turning or not, they belonged to her; they owed her their lives, for she could have simply ended them. She could have snapped their naps and left their bodies to rot in some dumpster. She could have! She chose to save them though. She chose to gift them with vampirism. Instead of ignoring his words or resenting him for them, she did her best to listen, to pay attention to him, and to recall the times when he’d struggled with a siring addiction. But things had been different back then. His progeny had been extremely possessive, a thing she could no longer deny. Her childer lacked that quality, didn’t they? Weren’t they all too wrapped up in their new lives to give a damn whether she created more vampires or not? She didn’t care, did she? Jesse always had to make her question herself. But when he circled the conversation back onto their previous topic, she immediately pushed those thoughts aside in favor of getting angry.
“Yes, I let a human man pin me to the filthy sewer wall and have his way with me!” Her voice rose, but she levelled it off and merely hissed the last few words. Then she frowned, her arms crossed over her chest. Her sarcasm likely wasn’t wanted, but he had insulted her, whether he knew it or not, whether he meant to or not. “If you dislike me sharing my blood, then I won’t share my blood with him anymore. No excuses. No argument. But you’re the only man I want pinning me anywhere and doing anything. I shouldn’t have to tell you that, but I will.”
She tried to calm herself in the way that he’d calmed herself. She focused on other things, like the fact that he’d handled it much better than she’d thought. Things could have gone much worse. That thought seemed to relax her more than anything. Things hadn’t gone as planned, and that was a good thing. She’d expected him to walk out, really. She probably would have, had the tables been turned. “I could have killed them. They could have died. It’s really a gift,” she defended, her shoulders lifting for a shrug, “so they should be happy. They should be thankful. They’ll appreciate me and enjoy my company, or I’ll disown them.” Her brows furrowed, she tried to explain herself better, but the words never seemed to come out right. She ignored Crimson and he seemed perfectly fine, though she’d never admitted how much it meant to hear from him sometimes, just to know he was still alright. “I haven’t run into a case that complicated,” she admitted, “but it might happen.”
J E S S E
Jesse’s lips pressed into a thin line. Clover’s anger was out of place. How often had she got jealous for no reason? She hadn’t told him what she’d pictured, but the jealousy had been there. In spades. Not just with women. With everyone. And Jesse understood. It implied a lack of trust. But if she could get jealous, then so could he. “If jealousy is a form of flattery then you’ve got it in spades, and I’m allowed a taste,” he said. It was merely an aside, and it wasn’t the focus of their conversation. He swatted her anger aside like it was an annoying fly. On any other night he’d have placated her with his lips and his hands. He’d have pinned her to the couch and given her no leeway to move. But he wasn’t finished.
“Pretty sure when I sired you, I called it a gift. I forced it on you, said you should love it. You remember the hell you gave me? Did you accept it as a gift? Did you appreciate it from the get go? You… you want to be human again. I read your journal. Why would you be so determined to call it a gift when the only thing stopping you from taking a possible cure is the fact that I wouldn’t?” he said. He’d never actually talked to Clover about the cure; he’d not mentioned to her that he would, in fact, make that sacrifice. If it was truly what she wanted, if she wanted it with all her heart… he’d hate it, but he would do it.
And maybe he wouldn’t hate it. Maybe he’d enjoy settling down and having babies, and putting this darkness and brokenness behind him. He hadn’t thought about it, because he honestly didn’t believe there was a cure. He believed there was a weapon, and that they wouldn’t be human again. They’d be dead. For good. “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just offering my advice based on my own experiences. It works better when it’s something they want—you and I aside. That’s all I’m saying.”
C L O V E R
He really had to take her back to that night, the night when they first met. She’d been on the run. She’d been looking for an escape. He’d plucked her from the dirty sewer and slapped her into a new world, one she never could have imagined, and did she flourish? She supposed so, in a way. Back then, back at the beginning, she’d thought it a curse because of the difficulties that came with being a vampire. She never got to say goodbye to anyone or anything. He’d ripped her from her life and given her a new one, all without asking. Didn’t she do the same? And yet she loved Jesse. Everything had worked out, in the end. Nothing said that her forced turnings would hate her; nothing said that her forced turnings would love her. There were multiple possibilities. She just couldn’t find the empathy within herself, the emotions needed to understand things from the standpoint of her victims. She only saw her experience and her feelings and her wants. She let him continue because she had nothing to say then. She heard his words until they were no more, and then she continued gathering her thoughts.
“It took time,” she admitted, replying to his first questions. “You didn’t turn me because you wanted me. You turned me because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I’d seen too much. I wasn’t an extraordinary person you’d found on the streets. I was nothing. You cleaned up a mess. That’s how I felt. That’s what I thought.” She had to think to recall some of the nights directly following her turning, but those thoughts lasted for some time. Clo had always wanted to be special, to be different -- she still struggled with that desire.
“There are a few things I miss about being human, things that I’ll never get back, things that I’ll never be able to have. I’d rather not talk about them. But it was more than just you that made the thought of becoming human again impossible. What would we do? Continue slaughtering people, setting fires? And hope we don’t get caught and tossed in jail? I enjoy what we have now and I realized it was selfish, too selfish for me, to throw everything away for possibilities. But,” she struggled then, “maybe I just lack the compassion and concern needed. I don’t care if I rip everything away from my victims. I just want them to want me, to need me. I feel like if they ask, they won’t appreciate it as much. Or maybe I just enjoy watching the cruel reality set in. It’s probably a mixture of things, Jesse.”
J E S S E
"Isn't it better to give them back a life that that someone else stole from them, then? Use that. Tell them they'd be dead without you, and not by your cause," he said. What two legs did he really have to stand on? Balthazar hadn't been planned. Jesse had let his brother stumble out of the tattoo parlour with the hope that the bite wouldn't take, that the guy would just wake up like from a nasty hangover and get on with his life. But it hadn't worked out that way. Raegan? If he'd stopped and called an ambulance she might have lived, but instead he'd hastened her death. Sometimes he felt she only forgave him because he'd ripped the heart out of her persecutor's chest. It hadn't been an act of heroism. It was just the blood lust, the frenzy taking control. Marisol, even. She'd been teased and tortured and threatened by the both of them, though in the end her life had been saved, and it was neither of them who'd taken it from her to begin with.
"Look, I don't understand the way you go about it. I had a need and I didn't pick and choose who I wanted to sire. I plucked them off the street and provided flimsy excuses as to why I thought they'd work. And... I still turned you," he muttered. "I could have killed you for being a witness, as I've killed so many others for just being a witness, but I didn't. I turned you because there was something there, something in you that I wanted to keep, and preserve. I wouldn't have done it otherwise," he said. What had it been? The tattoos, he thought. He'd admired the art on her skin, the sleeve of vibrant colour that would have taken hours of pain and endurance to collect.
"And if we ... if it was a cure, if it wasn't just a weapon, if we wouldn't die and it wasn't some trick. If it was real, if it was... maybe it wouldn't be possible. You won't talk about it, but I will. Maybe it'll help you, maybe it wouldn't..." he reached out. Finally, he took Clover's hand, the one with the wedding ring on it. He held her hand, admiring it before bringing it to his own cheek. "Maybe we'd be able to give it all up, this violence. If we were human, maybe we wouldn't need it. We would settle down. Have children," he said. The last two words were a whisper, barely there. And he couldn't look her in the eye when he spoke them. He'd looked away, focused on some random stain on the couch. Probably blood. Probably his. Hers was black, and it didn't stain.
C L O V E R
Trigg didn't matter. Forced turnings didn't matter. When Jesse took her left hand, she inhaled sharply, as if she'd still considered them on separate continents, divided by a vast expanse of land and sea. Maybe the cure would have been great. Maybe the cure would have been a success. Maybe everything wrong with her head had something to do with her turning and the cure would have fixed all of her problems. But he had to mention children. She watched him, waiting for him to gather the nerve to look her in the eyes, but he continued looking elsewhere. She lightly nudged his cheek with her left palm, trying to get him to look into her eyes.
“Would you really want that?” The words hurt, not because she wanted different but because they just hadn't really broached the subject as honestly as he had just moments ago. She didn't want to get into specifics, to talk about how she wondered where they'd go, what they'd do, but she couldn't help it. Kae had already reassured her that Jesse would be there, and she'd been right. Of course.
“I wondered where we would go,” she admitted, raising her other hand so she could caress his cheeks, so she could just enjoy touching him. “I wondered what we would do for a living, if we'd get boring jobs, if you'd still be a tattoo artist. I wondered if you'd want kids. How many. If you'd be a good dad. If I'd be a good mom. I didn't want to say something because I thought you'd be upset. I thought we'd get so much more than we have now. And it'd be ours.” She closed the distance between them to lightly kiss his lips. She didn't need him thinking the cure meant everything, but it came with the promise of something different, a world where they weren't sadistic killers, where the hunt didn't matter. She'd be able look herself in the mirror again and see someone worthwhile -- no, simply someone different. “Not more,” she fixed her words, finally. “Something different.”
It didn't matter, but she felt so desperate to say the words. “I'm sorry I can't give you a family.”
J E S S E
With the nudge, Jesse looked. It was like losing a staring contest, but the opposite. Who could avoid each other's eyes the longest? Jesse lost. The conversation had done them good, though Jesse was still jealous. He was still angry. He liked Trigg less than he did before, and hadn't answered Clover when she'd suggested she stop giving her blood. Her blood was precious and, just like she was possessive over who could harm Jesse or not, he too felt possessive of her blood. It was only his to see. Only his to spill, when that specific kink was craved. That the blood thief had harmed Clover at all should mean instant death, but Clover's attachment had provided the lucky human with a force field. Jesse could only hope that some other ill luck found the guy.
But they'd reached a kind-of accord. The topic and changed and shifted until they'd landed here; the ultimate communication. A topic that hurt them both equally; it was a tease, offering them hope for something they could never have. At least, in Jesse's opinion it was a pipe dream, a farce. The building had been blown up, and who knew who had a hold of the cure, now? What if no one did? What if the hope of it was just... gone, up in a puff of smoke? He'd never pinned anything on it. He hadn't allowed himself hope so that the loss of it couldn't hurt him. His fingers tightened around Clover's hand. While she'd kissed him his eyes and closed, his lips welcoming hers like her kiss was a soothing balm, a medicine he didn't know he needed. Now, his eyes snapped open, the brightness of them sharp. He had a habit of reprimanding her when her apologies were not required.
"That's not on you," he said. "I made you this. It should be me apologising because I took that ability from you," he said, his voice a harsh whisper, gruff and broken as it always was. "I imagined I'd still be an artist. You'd be a writer. We'd move overseas, far from this place. Your home. We'd have two kids. Boys. Twins," he said. He'd thought about it. Sometimes, now he had the ability to withstand the sun, he suffered insomnia. Sometimes, these were the things he thought of while he lay awake, staring at the ceiling. He didn't have to answer her first question. Would he really want it? He never thought so, until it became an impossibility.
