Path of the Vampire forum

Leiren: Wolfang
Wolfgang: Hello, Leiren.
Leiren: It's been a while.
Wolfang: A very long while, two thousand and thirteen, I believed, is the last time we spoke.
‹Leiren› .. Well. Something like that. I don't even remember.
‹Wolfgang› I do.
‹Leiren› I'm surprised.
‹Wolfgang› I thought you might be, but perhaps I am the one that is most surprised, to find that you will still come to my summons.
‹Leiren› I loved you, why would I not? Even if you were not happy with me. I understood then and now I'm not really what you wanted. I couldn't ever offer you a life like you wanted.
‹Wolfgang› Do not belittle what we had. Of course I loved you. I care very much for you.
* Leiren chewed on her lip. "Okay."
‹Wolfgang› "You know this life has always been difficult for me, I wasn't suited to be a... vampire." He said the last word quietly.
‹Leiren› I know. I know that very well. I was, I am. That hasn't changed for me and I'm not sure it has for you either.
‹Wolfgang› Hm?
‹Leiren› Have you come to terms with what you are?
* Wolfgang had been studying her, but chose to look away in response to her new question. "I have returned because I've heard rumour of a cure."
* Leiren 's eyes went wide at that and then she furrowed her brow. "I see."
* Wolfgang supposed that was his answer. "This is no life, life doesn't exist without death."
‹Leiren› Wolf you were my life once and when you never came back, I had no reason to be awake. I might as well have been dead. So sure, I see your point.
* Wolfgang just as night could not exist without day, he thought. "Leiren, I'm sorry I left, I did so for Noah, and I would again. That is not to say you aren't important, you were, you still are. I couldn't imagine you gone. I'm sorry I didn't call, I thought that would only make things worse."
* Leiren took a deep breath. In. Out. "It's fine. It doesn't matter now. I wished you a happy life then and I wish it to you now." Slowly she curled her fingers and dug her nails into her palm, the pain would help her not to cry and make it through this conversation.
* Wolfgang despite every thread of dark-magic that made him immortal, he still looked so human. "I recall, with district clarity, you telling me to **** off," he smiled, it was a warm smile, un-accusing.
‹Leiren› I was upset and hurt and.. and.. you were all I had left and I never really had you in the first place. That was hard for me to realize and worse for me to deal with. I was angry at you. I was sooo angry at you. The anger faded and then I'd just hope you were having a good life. One that didn't include your crazy ex, because that's all I really was.
* Wolfgang the smile fled his features, causing them to soften. "It seems there is much to discuss."
* Leiren swallowed thick and looked at him with wet eyes, trying to find the anger she once had and it was just gone. There was nothing but pain in those memories anymore. "If you say so."
* Wolfgang but first, he thought, and reached out, offering a hand. "Come here," he said.
* Leiren simply took his hand, because he asked, because that's what she'd always done.
* Wolfgang drew her near before he wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her against his chest. "Don't cry."
* Leiren felt the tightening in her chest, the smell of him flooding her senses. It hurt, it brought back memories of so much, and she closed her eyes tight as if that could prevent tears. "I'm sorry. I tried to be what you needed. I couldn't. I can't. I'm sorry." The drop streaked her cheek and ran to her chin.
* Wolfgang sucked in a breath, holding it for a time, if only because it brought them closer. "Leiren that's not why I loved you," he told her, "nor why I left you." There came a pause, and in the silence he scolded himself for upsetting her again. "I hoped that I had known the real you, not the you you thought I needed."
* Leiren shook her head just slightly, perhaps in nuzzling him instead of just a simple movement, as if she wanted too, but didn't or couldn't allow herself. "It doesn't matter now. Are you.... are you happy?" She asked in trying to change the subject. Needed to change the subject.
* Wolfgang didn't loosen his grip or say anything.
* Leiren didn't know how to take that, so she just accepted it for what it was. A non-answer. Her little fingers curled against his shirt at the curve of his spine. They could do silence, silence was good, even as another drop fell from her eyes. Wasn't love just grand?
* Wolfgang he was happy, he had all the comforts money could buy, and his marriage of convenience was working for both children. Of course he loved Julianna, he had her understanding after-all, but true-love, that didn't come around so often. Had he truly been in love with Leiren, or was it all as she had painted? "I'm glad you're awake," even if he didn't deserve it, he thought.
* Leiren went to open her mouth, to say something snarky, but she didn't. Instead she just responded truthfully. "I'm not."
* Wolfgang pulled back from the embrace with care, if only to study her face in attempt to read her features. "Then why do you wake?"

* Leiren shrugged. "Because Cliff found where I was hiding, sleeping, and dragged me up from what I intended to make my tomb for eternity." Her face read as that was the worst idea ever, for this very moment, seeing Wolf, was exactly what she hadn't wanted. She hadn't wanted to relive the memories. Hadn't wanted to remember his smell, and most of all, she hadn't wanted to feel the hole in her chest anymore. And now it was there, back and festering, a wound that wouldn't heal.
* Wolfgang let his arms fall at his side as he took a slow step back. "Well you have free-will."
* Leiren shrugged a bit. "I do. I came not so willingly but I did." With her fingers she wiped at her eyes, closing them to do so, before looking at him once more. "Numb was good, I can't be numb now, but facing you wasn't as hard as I thought it would be either." Lied. Straight up point blank lied. This was worse then facing Amara after she sold her out to Mircea. This was worse than her betrayal by Tristan. This was worse than anything she'd gone through in her life. Wolfgang hit her to her core, always.
* Wolfgang looked aside, he had seen her standing in the power-plant alongside the stranger and it had twisted him up, turning his innards in knots, as it did now. He had no right, and still he had summoned her to the other side of the city. Wolfgang remained silent.
* Leiren forced a smile to her lips. "Really, I'm okay. It's okay. Did you want your ring back? I still have it." Leir reached up to the necklace around her throat and pulled the chain until the little ring popped forth.
* Wolfgang a soft knot formed at the centre of his brow. "Of course I don't want that back," he told her, hurt that she would think so. "I gave that to you."
* Leiren bit her lip. "It's not really mine to keep. I wasn't a very good partner after all. And.. it's not the only token I have of.. us."
* Wolfgang took another step back from her, like a moth that had felt the flames. "Leiren," he warned, tone deep.
* Leiren cast her orbs to him and titled her blonde head, hair falling to the side as she undid the clasp. "I have the glass rose you bought for me. I have some of your clothes but they don't smell like you anymore. I have watched the same movie a hundred times because we saw it together. This ring doesn't change anything." She got the clasp open, the ring sliding to the end and she caught it before offering it to him. "This? This was never meant to be mine."
* Wolfgang looked down at the ring, one of his thumbs hooked in the pocket of his faded jeans. He made no attempt to reach for it, nor back away further, she could not make him take it. "Leiren," his voice softened, "please, I gave it to you because you are the person it was intended for. You can't undo the past in giving it back, nor the feelings that come with it."
* Leiren eyed the piece of metal. "There weren't feelings that went with it, not those kind of feelings. This was never mine. It was always yours. I just cared for it for a while." She swallowed hard. "My feelings weren't the same as yours. And that's okay. I just made a mistake and I shouldn't have dragged you into something you didn't really want."
* Wolfgang remembered the pressure he had felt on all sides when it came to their binding, he hadn't been ready, but he had cared, he had loved. Wolfgang chose not to look at the ring, as if the sight of it being presented back to him caused offence.
* Leiren shook her head and sighed because he always had to make things so difficult. "Why do you want me to keep it?"
‹Wolfgang› Why do you want to throw it away?
‹Leiren› I'm not throwing it away, I'm releasing it, and the weight it has for me, back to its rightful owner.
‹Wolfgang› I don't want it back, if you don't want it, it's up to you to deal with how to rid yourself of it.
* Leiren frowned a bit. "Okay."
* Wolfgang put his fingers through dirty blonde hair and sighed. He reached out, palm turned up, waiting for the ring. If it caused her so much pain, he thought, the least he could do was lift that weight.
* Leiren leaned herself into his touch and then she very carefully dropped the weight of her world into his palm. So simple of an item, so small, carried it all. "Thank you," she whispered as softly as possible.
* Wolfgang let the ring fall between forefinger and thumb as he turned his hand over, his arm falling to his side once more. Blindly he pushed the small ring over the end of his forefinger, feeling it stop before the first crease in the skin, just below the nail, finding that it would go no further.
* Leiren turned her eyes from his and placed her hands behind her back, rocking slightly on her heels. "Are we okay?"
* Wolfgang felt heavy with something like sorrow, the sensation fleeting, not understanding it. He nodded, but said nothing.
‹Leiren› I guess I'll head out now? I'll uhm, see you around Wolf. You can summon me whenever you like. I'll always come to your call.
‹Wolfgang› Will you come round tonight, at West Towers?
‹Leiren› If you like, just summon me. I'll.. here.
‹Wolfgang› All right.
* Leiren bled a bit to summon spirits for him. "There, that should make up for summoning me.. again."
* Wolfgang blinked, not knowing how she had done that.
‹Leiren› Soon I'll be a necromancer too. I've never stopped embracing my power, Wolf. I only ran away from my emotions. I love you, I always will. See you later.
* Wolfgang let her go.

Wolfgang: The evening had dragged after seeing Leiren, and he walked home with his mind full of fog, fighting himself. Inviting her around had been a terrible idea, he knew that, he also knew that it wasn’t something she wanted. He had tried to rip the plaster off quickly, and instead left it hanging. Inside the penthouse of West Towers, the sound from the streets below were muffled. The fireplace was dead cold, the place had been sitting abandoned for years, but the cleaner was still being paid, and so it remained spotless. Wolfgang opened the windows a crack, and left the door that led to the swimming pool open to let the night air drift in. He wandered into the living room then, and just as they had discussed, summoned the woman to his side.

Leiren: Had been sitting at the Necropolis, waiting for Amaranthia to notice her presence, when she felt the pull and in a rush she was delivered to Wolf. She had managed to change and refresh her makeup, but that’s really it. Her throat had felt bare and so she now wore an infinity diamond on the end of a sterling silver chain. “Wolfgang,” she greeted him with a smile. So he’d summoned her, keeping his word. At least that was the same still in their evolving relationship. “Not much has uhm.. Changed?”

Wolfgang: Had taken the time to change, trading faded jeans he wore to fight in, for a slim pair of fitted suit-pants, grey, but not quite as dark as the long-sleeved dress-shirt that opened in a V below his neck where the top two buttons had been left undone. His hair was combed back and fixed with a light amount of product, styled with a rough hand and knowing fingers. A simple white-gold ring dressed the thumb of his right hand, and a thin, matching chain lay about his neck. Blue eyes pinned the woman as she took form before him, her words like a song, one he had played over and over.

“Change is expensive,” he teased, he had never minded the layout of the penthouse, but agreed it could do with a freshen up; lighter colours, at the very least some new curtains. “I hope I didn’t catch you in the middle of something.”

Leiren: “You did not, not really anyway. I was wondering if Amara would be around at the club but I don’t believe she was expecting me so I will simply try again another time.” The lithe form of the female shifted her weight from one foot to the other and titled her eyes to meet his, a faked but faked well smile on her lips. “Are you even here often enough to care if it changes? I mean, if you aren’t, then there is really no need. If I cared to climb to the top of Paragon, my apartment is there and the same as it was before. Not that I care too, it reminds me too much of past things.” A pause in her words and she bit her lip.

Wolfgang: Knew pain when he saw it, after all he had made his fortune learning people, and then using that knowledge to his advantage. A good cop gone bad, who had mixed himself up in all the wrong things. It had gotten him killed in the end, but perhaps, like this pain, that too could be undone.

“No, I suppose I’m not,” he admitted, was that a dig at his time away? If so he deserved it. “This is all a bit of a blast from the past, I’m sure.”

Leiren: She opened her lips and then closed them again, choosing her words carefully. “Then see, it doesn’t matter if you change it or not. Your life isn’t in this apartment, and really even in this city yeah?” Leiren moved now from the spot she stood in, walking around because that was better than standing. As if pacing, except not in the exact same path. Instead she took in the sight of it again. “It is, well... I guess for me it doesn’t feel all that much in the past. I went to sleep with the memories and woke with them, even if I wanted to forget things. I remember the pain on many faces at things I did, but really over all I remember the things that made me happy and turned to pain more often than not. So I slept more and then they just plagued my dreams and... really. I’m not sure sleeping was any less then being awake, just less people to deal with.”

Wolfgang: Dropped the pleasantries, he knew she didn’t want to speak about the carpet or the colour of the cushions on the sofa at her back. They had both hurt people, intentionally, and without trying to. As well as that, they had hurt each other, and while time seemed to dim the pain, it was never quite forgotten. He took a quiet step after her, watched as she moved about the place, but chose once again to stand still.

“Time hasn’t passed quickly, but looking back, it all seems a blur,” he told her, “Noah is ten now.” Ten, he couldn’t quite believe that, his son was aging while he had not moved on even a single day, features static, stuck. He knew now that the virus stopped them from aging, and had to wondered, if there was a cure, what would it undo?

“I don’t summon you now to cause further pain,” he admitted, “I just…” Missed you, wondered how you were, wanted to hear your voice? What was the real reason, he challenged himself to tell the truth. “Honestly, I just wanted to see you.” He closed the distance between them again and lifted his hand to touch her shoulder.

Leiren: There was a pause in her when he spoke of his son, because she couldn’t fault him for that. Couldn’t even try to find reason to hurt him or be angry, in love for someone that is your flesh and blood. Yet, she couldn’t comment on it. Even if she had wanted to she just couldn’t bring herself to do so. That life wasn’t his life with her and she’d always known that. She also should have known without a doubt that she wasn’t going to convince him to leave that life or some foolish nonsense like that. Not that she had ever thought of it like that, but looking back that’s essentially what she had asked him to do, wasn’t it? With a hitch in her breath she closed her eyes as his touch landed upon her. Thick swallow of emotion that bubbled to the surface. “I always hoped you would just summon me out of my hole. That you’d miss me. So why does it hurt?”

Wolfgang: Fell silent as she spoke, her form cool to touch, unlike that of Julianna’s. It pained him to think that he still had so much power over her emotions. He hated the forced smiles and aching look in her eyes. Hand curled, he pressed the back of his fingers to her neck and brushed the blonde curtain of hair aside, exposing the edge of her jaw. It was just below her ear, against the sensitive skin there that he pressed the pad of his thumb and traced and invisible line until the digit fell away, turned against his hand. “I don’t know.” His tone was low, voice almost a whisper, as if afraid to hazard a guess, thinking it might cause her to leave.

Leiren: She nicked the inside of her cheek with her teeth, her fang, as she felt the caress of his touch. How horrible that this man turned her into a wreck in moments, how awful that she was forcing herself to not be reduced to a sobbing mess on the floor only because she wouldn’t do it again. Couldn’t do it again. “I’ll be fine,” was the only response she could muster. The only one that mattered. Life moved on and after sleeping for years there was only one path forward and she knew that didn’t include Wolf’s life meshing with her own. No, she had come to realize all that time ago now that his human life is where he belonged. Damn it if that didn’t hurt to come to terms with though. With a very heavy sigh she brought her hand up to her cheek and wiped at her eye. “I have to be fine.”

Wolfgang: Shifted, the leather of his shoe silent against the wooden floor as his body twisted to face hers. He tunnelled his fingers through her hair, it had taken all of his strength to keep them from it up until now. “You are fine,” he agreed, “you were always stronger than you gave yourself credit.”

He let his hand fall away, brushed both against the front of his pants, a very human habit, one that might of been useful if he still had the ability to sweat. “I’m sorry,” Wolfgang said, and turned away from her, “I don’t know what I was thinking, coming back here, summoning you…”

Leiren: “I can’t answer that,” her voice was barely above a whisper and sad, distant. “But you did and.. I’m not upset that you did. I’m just longing for something that wasn’t... reality.” Leiren took a step into him and placed her hand on his chest. “Honestly, it’s okay. Maybe we can be friends? Or... well. If that’s too presumptuous then we can just be whatever you want to be.”

Wolfgang: Placed his hand over hers and dug his fingers under her small hand to peel it away from his chest, he couldn’t have her touch him there, in fact anywhere else would have been easier to ignore. Instead he gave the woman’s hand a squeeze, and this time, Wolfgang was the one forcing a smile.

Leiren: When he removed her hand from him, his hand touching her own or not, she knew she’d assumed too much. A fleeting hope was snuffed and she managed to not let the disappointment show on her features even as she met his smile with her own. “Everything happens for a reason, or so I’m told. I uhm. I just hope that everything works out well for you. And uhm. Your son and uhm.” She was forcing her train of thought to the point she was just babbling. Saying whatever she could to not say the things on her mind that didn’t matter. “If you ever need a pretty good hacker or... thief... or… whatever. I’m available?”

Wolfgang: Stopped her there, abandoning his hold on her hand to lift the limb and press his thumb to her lips. “We are friends, Leiren,” that much he knew he would always be able to say with certainty. He knew the young Telepath well enough to know when she was grasping at something that wasn’t there. ~Speak your mind,~ he told her, not in word but in thought.

Leiren: When he stopped her from her mouth moving slower than her brain, which was racing along like a bullet, everything just sort of paused for her. ‘We are friends’. Yeah? Really? Were they? It was... nice to have friends. “I’m just glad we’re friends, then. That’s all. I wasn’t sure you’d want to be friends.” A press of her lips together and she mulled over her thought before she spoke back into his mind, things you can’t say aloud and all that, and played a memory for him. Perfect in detail down to the last blasted color, because this was one of her gifts. The two of them on their date and her body wrapped in the warmth of his sweater, that didn’t even remotely fit her well, being too big for her small frame. But she was happy and he looked happy, because that’s how she remembered it. ~I can’t.~

Wolfgang: Closed his eyes as she pressed the thought into his mind. At first it felt foreign, cold and uninvited. He hadn’t run into anyone back in New York that could do this, share the same headspace with him. For the most part the virus seemed to be concentrated to Harper Rock, where it belonged, where Wolfgang feared it would spread from. With the memory, though, a warmth spread through him, the kind that made a shiver dance up his spine and cause the small, invisible hairs on the nape of his neck to stand on end. He couldn’t pick the memory from his own, but matched the sweater to one he had lost, seemingly misplaced. Perhaps she still held onto it, he thought. When Wolfgang opened his eyes again, he was shocked to find his hands on Leiren, completely consumed by the thought she had fed him. Her last words echoed, replayed in his thoughts. ~You can,~ he challenged.

Leiren: ~No, you can. I can’t.~ She offered back, having already accepted her place and her fate so long ago. ~I don’t belong in your world, you belonged in mine.~ Again she played another memory of the two of them, memories of sultry kisses and playful banter and the way his eyes changed when she was near him, the movement of his step changing just slightly and she noticed it because he was everything. Had been everything. By the time her images stopped she was crying, tears flooding down her cheeks like a tsunami she couldn’t stop. Facing him, facing all of him, was something she had needed to do but hadn’t wanted to. She wanted to leave it at **** you and I hate you and go away to your real life, but that wasn’t how it would end and she knew it. Not with a bang, but with a whisper. Not with passion and fire, but with the cool breeze of change in seasons passing into each other. Flawlessly and one day you wake up and realize, it’s just not there.

Wolfgang: Watched her cry, like a boy looking through a glass window at something he couldn’t change, rain falling on a driveway to wash away a mural sketched in chrok. He blinked, slow, not knowing himself for a time. How had he let things get so bad, walked away all those years ago when she had been in such pain? It was easy to turn one’s back on biting words, and something entirely different to ignore tears. He lifted his hands to brush through the thin paths of water dragged down the length of her face, breaking them in two, only for the paths to reform seconds later. “Don’t cry,” his whispered, too late.

Leiren had convinced herself that their relationship was one he had never wanted, formed of something other than love, perhaps for comfort or company alone. It didn’t matter how much he had denied this now and in the past, the woman somehow believed happiness with him was something she didn’t deserve. A life for his son had always been more important, and until Noah was old enough to fend for himself, it would remain so. Five years had raced by, or so it seemed looking back, ten more would not go so easy. Could he live, he wondered, with all these what-ifs?

“I’m sorry.” What else could he say, knowing he was the cause of such pain. “Leiren…”

Leiren: “You don’t have to placate me.” She said in response as the tears slipped even though he tried to brush them away. “You didn’t ever have to placate me. You just had to tell me I was foolish. Instead I guess I learned that on my own.” She took a shaky breath and bit at her lip, closing her eyes with a move of her head to tilt down. There was no meeting his eyes now. “I’m sorry too. I really am.” With slow movements she pulled back from him, creating distance when there felt like there wasn’t enough. But there would never be enough. New York wasn’t enough. An ocean wouldn’t be enough. Maybe a couple of planets would be. A realm away might be. “I love you, Wolf. I’m sorry I loved you.”

Wolfgang: “I’m not,” came his retort, soft, but sure. “Leiren, I know you have no reason to believe it, how can someone walk away from…” well, everything she had played to him in thought, crisp, as vivid and clear as if it had taken place yesterday. “I’m not sorry for what we had, only the way in which I cut it short, and how it left you. I’ve been a terrible friend to you.”

Leiren: She sniffed a bit and tilted her head, but she didn’t move from looking at her shoes even when her eyes did open. “It doesn’t matter. I’m moving on, you’re moved on. I’m fine.”

Wolfgang: Remained silent for a time, there were questions, so many questions he had no right to request answers for. “I understand, and I hope you are, fine…”

Leiren: “I have to be. That’s all there is to it.” Her voice hitched again and she captured and bit her lower lip harshly. There was nothing else she could say, because nothing would change anything. At this point they were left with nothing but facts. Facts that didn’t really matter. Facts that he would go home and she would just continue her life here, in Harper Rock, as a Vampire.

Wolfgang: This wasn’t how he had envisioned the evening panning out, but what else had he expected? What more could he hope for? “I’ll be here for some time,” he told her, “fact finding, I suppose…” He needed to find that cure, it seemed his decision was made, why had he expected her to change that? Had he really wanted her to?

Leiren: “While you’re here, you can find me I’m sure. Though I’m no use to you in your search. I think you’re foolish to want a cure for gifts. So I can’t even wish you luck in it.” Because if he found it, and he was human, well... he would die, and she’d never wish for that, not even at her lowest. “Still, if you’re around, you can at least look me up I suppose… I’m really just a summon away. But I uhm, I have a person to go see so, I should go meet him.”

Wolfgang: She may have been a summon away, but in the same room, even now, she felt a world away. Wolfgang reached out, took Leiren’s hand a gave a tug, drawing her gaze, or so he hoped. “Leiren,” he said, tried to look her straight in the eye, and then released her fingers. “Safe travels.”

Leiren: Hadn’t even then been able to meet his gaze. Not for a last look, not for a last impression, not for a final closing on a chapter of history that should have been shut ages ago. Just... a lift of her tome and a whisper of her perfume leaving a stain of her presence.