Path of the Vampire forum

Backdated to Shortly after this thread.

A Z R A E T H

Flynn had not been too keen on staying in the hospital for very long, which made sense, not only because hospitals themselves were creepy as ****, but also because the Paladin healed abnormally quickly, which was not the sort of trait one wanted people in the science community to pick up on. Of course, even before the Paladin’s release, Az had been effectively glued to him as much as possible without doing any extra harm by his need to be clinging. But after they had returned to their little cabin just outside of Harper Rock, the vampire had been as vigilant as a hawk. A hawk who went to great lengths to make sure that its partner was well taken care of. When Flynn was allowed out of bed, he was wrapped in blankets, draped over pillows, and fed the best things Azraeth could manage. There had been one point when the vampire had attempted to quite literally feed him, but that had not gone to plan. Which was to say the Paladin had given him a very stern look and refused to open his mouth. Which had created a bit of a mess, because the Mystic had been just a smidge forceful, resulting in homemade mashed potatoes and gravy ending up all over the human’s chin.

Strangely, Flynn had not minded Az cleaning that up. Fast forward a few weeks, and the vampire was finally beginning to relent on his death grip. This was, in part, because Azraeth couldn’t rightly deny the fact that his lover was essentially glowing with health. Thus, the two of them had properly gone out for the first time in ages. Originally Az had wanted to see A Wrinkle in Time, but reviews had turned him off to the idea. Instead, they’d gone to see the wildly hyped Black Panther, which mostly lived up to the acclaim in the vampire’s book. They were just getting back home, and as was his usual manner after making it through the front door, Az began to pull his clothing off (he could pick it up later). He clearly had something on his mind, though he hadn’t brought it up just yet.

F L Y N N

Getting out of the house had never felt so good. It wasn’t unusual for Flynn to act like a reclusive shut-in even on his healthiest days, but he had the option to leave when he felt like it. In the last few weeks, that was hardly the case. He had left the hospital only after a lengthy argument with the attending physician, who had gone out of his way to convince the Paladin that it was recommended he stay for continued observation should he take a turn for the worse. He, of course, had none of it and signed the paperwork to be discharged into Azraeth’s care. A job that the vampire took almost too seriously, but Flynn had never opposed his partner’s wishes. He knew that it came out of a place of love, and that the hovering was just concern. So, he took it in stride and did his best to assure the other man that he was okay, that he was getting better. It felt a little like a role reversal, in that this time it was Az’s turn to care for him, much like he had when the vampire had not only one, but three gunshot wounds to the head. A little different, maybe, but similar enough.

Needless to say, the idea of getting out of the house to see a movie was one he had grasped in a vice grip. It was like the fresh air alone was enough to clear away the creeping restlessness. And it wasn’t a bad movie, he enjoyed it well enough. But, that enjoyment was tinged with a little apprehension, and he couldn’t exactly put his finger on why. Just that the vibe only really came from Azraeth. Like there was something that Flynn wasn’t picking up on that he should, but he didn’t ask. If that really was the case, then the vampire would tell him when he felt it was necessary to. Communication was something they had no shortage of, and that was enough for him. For now. “We should go and see that other movie you wanted to see some other night...reviews are just opinions, meaning you can disagree…” he mused aloud, trailing after his partner and grabbing the discarded clothes as they came off.

A Z R A E T H

There was an elephant in the room. Az knew it. Flynn knew it. And the vampire was not the sort of person who was good at keeping a lid on what he was thinking or feeling, when it came to his personal life. Sure. He could play his cards close to his chest when it came to people he didn’t know about. Or didn’t care about. But when it came to those he loved? He was very much the kind of person to wear his heart not only on his sleeve, but to hold it, still trembling, in his hand. He was a book so open that it had pop ups (which was totally a dick joke as far as Flynn was concerned). Which meant that the human totally picked up on the tension in much the way he was picking up the loose articles of clothing. It wasn’t until the vampire was dressed down to his undergarments that he paused. Though they had been out in the cold, Azraeth had basically been plastered against his Paladin, which meant he was still warm. Best to keep it that way. Which was why he went to put the fire together. It had been one of the features which had most drawn the vampire to the little house, because it made the space feel homey.

It wasn’t until the flames were reaching up from the logs, like claws reaching up from the pit, that Az went to flop on the couch. The crackle and roar sent a little thrill of energy right down his spine, and he tracked his partner’s progress. “Okay, so I have something I want to talk about.” He finally said. Because small talk was not the sort of thing he was great at when he had something on his mind. “Er. But you should come and sit with me before we get into it.” He decided. He wanted to add that, in a perfect world, Flynn would come to sit down and chat about it mostly naked, but he was attempting to be serious.

F L Y N N

The fact that the vampire didn’t respond to the comment in regards to the other movie told Flynn all he needed to know. Azraeth’s mind was somewhere else, turning gears on a matter that he had yet to bring up. That was just the way his partner worked, though, unusually quiet up until the point he was probed for more or he felt he had worked through it enough to actually voice it out loud. Like that somehow made them real. The Paladin kept quiet, going through the motions of gathering the clothing for the sake of taking them to the bedroom. While there, he lost a couple layers of clothing until all that really remained were his jeans and a t-shirt. The idea of getting into his pajama pants was a tempting thing, but he resisted the urge for the time being, should they happen to leave again. As he returned to the other room to see Az working to get a fire going, Flynn very nearly asked him to stop. Only teeth trapping his lips together kept the words from filling the silence between them, but his gaze never left the vampire.

Azraeth stepped away and sank into the couch, and the Paladin minimally relaxed. The other man’s voice captured Flynn’s attention, his eyes turning from the dancing flames. The tone of his voice, the almost hesitant nature of it, implied that this was a conversation the human doubted he would enjoy. “Okay…” he replied, slowly making his way to the couch, eyebrows furrowing together as he stared at his partner. “The fact I have to “sit down” for this one...kind of worries me.” Figuring that he might as well get comfortable for what was to come, he situated himself so that he was facing Az, an arm draped over the back of the couch. “What’s on your mind?”

A Z R A E T H

The moment Flynn dropped onto the couch, Az immediately crawled over to him, slinging one knee over a lap, only to drop himself there easily. The situation was not in the slightest uncommon, which went back to the whole ‘Azraeth is clingy’ thing. He enjoyed being close to his partner, and he made this known at every possible turn. Before launching into what was tangled in his brain, his hands slipped over his Paladin’s broad shoulders, gently kneading into them. He closed the distance between them seamlessly, and then there was one more very important matter to deal with. Their lips touched. It had all of the hallmarks of being a brief thing. At first, his mouth was just barely there, and it seemed like he was about to end it, but then thought better. So his lips lingered against the human’s. There was just a little of that soft suction, the stealing of breath. Then Az finally leaned back to rest his backside against the space between Flynn’s pelvis and knees.

“So.” He began cautiously. “When you were...attacked. There was a moment when I really wanted to do something. I wanted to turn you. I didn’t obviously, because it’s not something we’ve ever talked about. But I think…” he squirmed just a little bit where he sat as if he wasn’t sure exactly how he wanted to phrase what he was trying to say. His gaze had, for a moment, been locked on his lover’s and then it dropped in contemplation. His eyes only lifted once more, those reptilian things, so that he could suck in a breath, his cheeks inflating. “So I want you to be turned. I uh. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you, but there were some moments where I thought you were gone. Where I thought I had lost you, and those were the worst moments of my life. I’ve never wanted to stop existing before, but that happened. I need you to become a vampire so that I know you will be around forever.”

F L Y N N

As concerning as the request was that Flynn sit down for the conversation that his partner wanted to have, having the man in his lap was also immediately calming. Counterintuitive as it was, when considering what he was. That wasn’t anything new, though, as the vampire had always had that effect on him. Even in those early days where that reaction was involuntary in his presence, it was just as quickly pushed away by something as simple as a touch. Of course, it wasn’t calming enough to make him lose sight of that tension hanging in the air and the fact that this “start” to the conversation felt a little like stalling. An attempt to prolong that moment where Flynn was oblivious to the thoughts that Az had been stewing in for...who knew how long. Even so, his arms were around his partner the second he settled, their lips touching in the brief, yet undeniably intimate moment. As he pulled back, Flynn’s hold tightened, if only to keep him from getting too far.

And then he started to talk. In truth, they hadn’t really touched too deeply on the situation they had been in only weeks before. In a way, that was probably for both of their benefit, as it was traumatic for them both. Just in different ways. Apparently, it was the time to bring it up, again. Azraeth shifted uncomfortably in his lap, and then the words came out. The Paladin froze, his entire form doing rigid and his expression twisted into something almost akin to disgust, but not quite. It happened without thought or consideration. It was only there for a flash before Flynn schooled his expression into something as impassive as he could muster. The reaction had come from a place deep within, that damn near buried intuitive repulsion for all things undead, but it had still happened, and Az would have seen it. There was no taking that back, even if that wasn’t necessarily how he thought. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you correctly…” he finally replied, staring at the man in his lap with wide eyes, like a cornered animal who was being forced to face its worst nightmare.

A Z R A E T H

There were hands on him, and in the moments when those fingers squeezed down, and he felt the weight of palms, he told himself that things were going to be fine. That he wasn’t asking something crazy or outlandish. He thought to himself that their relationship and their love was strong enough that it didn’t matter really if Flynn was human or vampire. And that, to an extent, was hubris. The fantasy that the perfect magic of their relationship could not be touched. Azraeth saw the shift in Flynn’s expression, and those thoughts, the ones that he had been playing over to assure himself, came to a screeching halt inside of his head. His brows lifted and it was difficult for him not to let the hurt show. It was that whole open book thing again. Az could filter his expressions when he really needed to, but he hadn’t been in that situation with Flynn before. He dragged his own lower lip between his front teeth and bit down firmly enough to hurt, but not hard enough to bleed. He knew the Paladin hadn’t meant it. He knew the human was fighting instinct.

But that too was a reason to turn was it not? Az needed to think, but he didn’t have the time for that. Not really. He’d started the conversation, and there was no way out of it except through the other end. “I want you to be a vampire.” He repeated. There was this tone Az affected when he was being serious and yet loving all at the same time. When he used it, his voice lacked any real sternness, and there was this...odd inflection that made it seem like he might crack a joke at any moment. He was not using that tone with Flynn. It was odd, because his voice itself had dropped a lot of the animation in general. There was emotion, but it had been carefully suppressed behind a wall of sorts. “If you stay as you are, what happens if another attack like that happens? Or what if you get on the wrong side of a vampire? I have the Fade. I can come back if I die, but you don’t have that option. I just…” He trailed off. He was having trouble focusing.

F L Y N N

He had hoped he wouldn’t see it. That Azraeth would manage to brush it off and ignore what was, no doubt, a bit like a slap to the face. Flynn’s reaction to the notion of being a vampire certainly wasn’t off to a good start, and he knew that, but it couldn’t be helped. There was an immediate desire to take it back, apologize for something that was so deeply rooted into his psyche that he couldn’t even be blamed it, but it never came. The most important person in his life, who happened to be a vampire, was staring at him and he couldn’t bring forth the words to ease the sting. That hold on the man was lost as the Paladin rose his hands to his face, rubbing at it in frustration as his thoughts seemed to knot and tangle together in one huge mess that he couldn’t seem to pick apart. All the things he could say were lost to an endless barrage of information, like pros and cons of a decision as big as the one posed to him. A decision he wasn’t sure he could make.

It was way too much to take in all at once, and the Paladin suddenly felt trapped beneath his partner. He was uncomfortably restless and he needed to move. In a swift move, he had removed Azraeth from his lap and stood, immediately pacing in the space of the room like a caged animal in need of a way out. And he was quiet for what felt like hours, but was only a matter of a few minutes, before he turned back to Az. He only stared at him, at first, and then sighed as he dropped to his knees in front of the couch, frowning. “Look, I can’t even imagine how hard those few days were for you. Not knowing what would happen. And I am so sorry that I put you through it, but…” he paused, eyes falling closed with a shake of his head. “I don’t think you actually understand what you’re asking of me.” Or maybe he did, but was that necessarily any better?

A Z R A E T H

Flynn was moving him. It wasn’t the first time that had happened, but normally, the Paladin just let Az do basically whatever he wanted. There was this ongoing joke that the Mystic was spoiled. And as much as the pair of them played it off like some sort of cute inside ‘thing’, it was true enough. And Az did not like being put down. Of course, he totally got the reason behind it. Flynn already had trouble with commitment. And Azraeth had basically said ‘Okay, so I want you to be with me for all eternity, plus a few years extra.’ Which was an extremely daunting perspective for anyone. Normally, the Mystic would have been a lot better at taking a more holistic approach to dealing with the problem. He was normally great at keeping in mind the things that bothered or spooked his partner. But he was in ‘bull in a china shop’ mode. It was probably because of all of the raw emotion he’d processed in those few short days. The idea of losing his mate made him anxious and upset, and angry, and scared all at once. So he wasn’t 100% rational.

He watched as Flynn paced. He watched as the man moved to kneel in front of him. Azraeth very nearly growled when his lover apologized to him. It wasn’t the Paladin’s fault that he’d been attacked. Az didn’t want to hear an apology. ‘Sorry’ was a wall, a barrier between someone making a mistake once and making a mistake a second time. Flynn had no power to control the universe or whatever the **** it decided to throw at them. Flynn couldn’t stop a volcano from erupting and raining down fire on them. He couldn’t stop a bunch of assholes from attacking him. And that was the point. The vampire’s features clouded briefly. “I know exactly what I’m asking of you.” He intoned. He did and he didn’t. He knew, at face value, but he failed to really understand the depth of what he was demanding, if only because he was viewing it through the lens of his own pain. “I don’t think I’m asking something terrible of you here. Do you even want to be with me forever?” He asked, peering into his partner’s eyes.

F L Y N N

It was like flipping a switch. The second the words fell out Azraeth’s mouth was the same instant that those familiar walls went up, that age-old pattern of blocking someone out when they struck that nerve. When those deeper vulnerabilities were jabbed at, as if to remind him that he hadn’t entirely worked through them to the point of ‘healing.’ In truth, if it had come from anyone else, it probably wouldn’t have bothered him. It was the fact that Az was the one saying it that hurt, because he knew better. “That’s not fair,” he finally whispered, staring at the vampire in front of him. Then he was his feet, backing up from the couch with fists clenched at his sides. “That’s not fair, and you sound so fu-...” he said, his voice rising into what could have almost passed for a yell, were he not carefully reigning it in. It took more willpower than Flynn thought he possessed, but he never finished that sentence. He had never sworn at Azraeth before, and he wasn’t about to start now. Frustrated, angry, whatever...it wasn’t happening.

Taking a single deep breath, he forced his hands to relax and his stance to do the same. Less defensive, even when he felt like shutting the conversation down right then before it progressed any further. “You aren’t just asking me to be with you forever. You’re asking me to give up...my life. My humanity.” At that point, he was forced to pause, because there was the saying “I’d die for you” and that wasn’t a false statement. He would die for Az, in a heartbeat. But, this wasn’t the same as that. “This is what I do. Every night I face the possibility of dying, because I’m human. Humans have expiration dates, even supernatural ones. And you knew that when we started this!” Now, it was just frustration. Trying to work through too much at once. “And your solution is for me to die.”

A Z R A E T H

So what exactly? He knew from the first syllable what Flynn had been about to say, but not the entire phrase. Az had to give his partner credit, the man could restrain himself when he needed to. But that had never been an issue with them. The Paladin was, at most times, rational and stable. He was a deep sunk anchor in a world full of chaos. For Az, there were very few of those. It was the Mystic who was everyone’s rock, their foundation. He was the one people came to when things went to ****. He was the one called upon to help oversee, and fix, and handle a myriad of problems. He did not begrudge this role because it meant that Azraeth got to show the people close to him how he felt about them. He got to soothe and love. And Flynn was that for Az, as well. Except they were fighting. That is what was happening wasn’t it? Heated discussion. Creative expression of frustration. Part of the problem was that the Mystic didn’t know how to handle what was going on in his head. He couldn’t just put aside his feelings to deal with the situation logically. He couldn’t fully embrace the emotions either, for fear of escalating things. He wanted to call a time out, and snuggle with his partner. Maybe catch a nap. Resume at a later date.

But that wasn’t how fights worked was it? He moved to stand, because he felt antsy sitting there. His arms folded behind his back. His hands didn’t know what to do. This was it. Flynn was pulling away from him. He had seen it. This was the moment when his boyfriend was going to leave him. I’m being selfish. He knew he was. The words hit him like a punch to the gut. He stepped closer to Flynn, and then his legs crumpled. His knees locked and hit the ground. He gripped the other man by his hips as if to help himself up, but he didn’t. “So what happens then? We spend time together until you die? We keep living this dangerous lifestyle where we bite off more and more until it finally kills you?” He asked. He was breathing heavily suddenly. His eyes were dry though his features were oddly red as if he’d just been crying. “Being with me is dangerous. I am the worst possible thing for your health, and I can’t stop myself from wanting to be with you. So where does that even leave us?”

F L Y N N

His partner stood from the couch, and for a second, Flynn thought that he was about to walk away. To do the very thing that he, himself, had been considering. Shutting the conversation down before it continued into uncharted territory, where there was potentially for things to spiral out of control. It was odd, really, how surreal the whole thing felt. It had been months, and the two of them had never fought. Not once. Which, in hindsight, maybe that was just a predictor that something big would crop up when they least expected it, and now, here it was. An argument over the very thing that they couldn’t overlook. The first thought everyone seemed to have when they were out together. How do a vampire and a human make a relationship work? At the beginning, it probably didn’t seem like such a big concept, since that was prime time for things to fall apart. Now, they were at a point of commitment. Ties to each other that they couldn’t so easily back out of. Their relationship was something they took seriously, that they worked on every day, even as easy as it was. Yet, here was the elephant in the room that they had ignored for so long that it seemed to have grown infinitely since that first touch of their lips those months ago. How did one make a molehill out of a mountain?

Azreath dropped to his knees, arms encircling the human’s hips as if he might somehow keep them both afloat. That he had all the answers for this little...scenario. Except that Flynn was at an utter loss for words for each question posed to him. Because when it was laid out like that...yeah, it sure sounded like a pretty shitty place to be at. “That’s...kind of the way us humans have to do things. We say “forever,” but that isn’t really such a realistic thing…” he sighed as his gaze dropped to the man clinging to him, knowing full well that it wasn’t answer to any of his partner’s questions, nor would it make him feel even remotely better about the situation. In fact, it would probably succeed at the opposite. “Why are you trying to fix what isn’t broken?” he finally asked, a hand finding its way into those dark locks. “Before that...happened...you never brought this up before, and you were more than happy to let us just…be. Now, it’s shifted so drastically that our relationship hangs on this decision?”

A Z R A E T H

He felt like all of his connections to reality were slowly slipping their tethers. He could almost feel himself going out of his body. He very much did not want to be having the conversation he was having, but that perhaps illustrated with it needed to happen. He felt fingers slip through his hair, and he wanted to seek comfort from the touch, but his chest felt as if it was filling with cement slowly, squeezing his heart and his lungs. “You don’t understand.” He whispered. “You have seen me at my lowest, but you always knew I would come back. You always knew I would heal up and be okay. When I walked into that hospital and expected to find you dead, I was ready to hunt down the ones who hurt you and then fling myself into the darkness after I dealt with them. I have seen what happens to human spirits in the Fade. I..I need to think that if you died, you would go on to a better place. There is no metaphor for eternity for us. There either is or there isn’t. If I lost you, I would lose myself too, and the only thing that could take away that pain is to be in the shadows and let them rob me of every ounce of humanity I have.” His jaw tightened. The words bubbled out of him.

Things he had been thinking. Things he never would have said out loud for anyone else. “You are my one. Do you understand? You will always have me. But I will not always have you. It’s not fair.” The words were repeated. The breathing had not slowed down, but grew more labored as he struggled to speak at rapid fire, and control the tightness behind his eyes and the vice squeezing around his core. “You think I’m asking too much of you by asking you to die. I’m telling you that you that you’re asking me to live with the reality that I will one day lose everything. What happened with those hunters was the first time I had to face it. Now I can’t escape it. Do you understand? I love you more than anyone, but you have become my living haunting.” And finally came the tears, burning like embers in his eyes.

F L Y N N

And that wasn’t something that Flynn didn’t understand, because he was haunted by his own demons. Demons his own mind had created. Still, those words repeated in his head, taunting him with irrationality that was steadily spreading its roots. ‘...my living haunting’ had this worm of guilt burrowing so deep into his thoughts that there was no way he could pull it free without allowing himself time to process. “I’m sorry…” he whispered, needing time to think. Just a chance to leave the heavy tension weighing them both down. He felt so much at once that it was impossible to justify any one of them with a reasonable explanation. Frustration. Guilt. Anger. Panic. And an overwhelming burning at the back of his throat that warned of the potential for his own tears. “You aren’t the only one haunted by what happened, Azraeth. Except, it’s not the hunters that haunt my every move. It’s you.” He paused, only briefly, for the sake of letting out a long and withering breath. “When I was comatose...I wasn’t just floating in some dark, cold abyss of nothingness. I was dreaming, but it all felt so real. I thought it was my reality. I dreamed of you. Our life together. The funny thing is...you were human, but it was...everything.”

He actually let out a soft, humorless laugh as he lowered himself in front of the dragon to wipe at the streams of tears. “The night I woke up, the dream was different. The last thing I saw was you burning alive and the last thing I heard were your screams. And I still hear them. Every time I open the bedroom door.” With a frown, he stood back up and careful untangled himself from pale arms until he was free of the hold. “I can’t give you what you want...I can’t say ‘yes.’ What I can tell you in this...However long I would live...that’s my metaphor for eternity, and I’m choosing to spend it with you.” Glancing toward the front door, his eyes narrowed. “I’m going to go get some air. Clear my head…” Which was really just code for walking away before the situation got any worse.

A Z R A E T H

Flynn was pulling away from him, and Az glanced up to his partner. He had been struggling, and failing to contain his expressions, like little birds kept in a poorly made cage. He had locked them away, and now they were wriggling against the bars, pecking at the latch. He had said everything that was in his soul to say, and in a way, there was relief in that. Odd, the things that could be comforting when it felt like the world was letting loose its grip on you. He heard every single thing his mate had to say. Some of it surprised him. Some of it made his chest feel like it was burning. Mostly, Azraeth wanted to call himself a fool, to pull himself up from the floor and offer up his love to the other man in the same uncomplicated manner he so often did. Except there was this moment of hesitation. Because he wasn’t sure if it was really the place or the time for that. To try and soothe the ache which burdened the Paladin’s mind. Az could feel it too, after a sense. And that was part of the issue, he supposed. When...whatever had happened, had happened...it had changed things between them. They could each feel what the other felt. Normally, this was physical, and manifested as pain, but there was some part of the Mystic which had to wonder if some of the soreness inside of his skull was borrowed from his human. If perhaps somehow they had broken into a vicious cycle which had only continued to turn because they hadn’t really been saying to each other, that which needed to be said.

In that single flash of a moment of hesitation, Flynn went to the door. He was leaving. Az was tempted to march right after him. In his underwear. How much of an Az moment would that have been? So he let the man go. Because there was another part of what the Paladin said, which struck home with him. As long as he would live. That sounded remarkably like a vow. And even though they were fighting. And even though they had gone through some of the most fucked up **** all in the space of a very short period of time, the vampire could not help but get a thrill from those words. It was like a little warm light shining on him in all of the gloom he had surrounded himself with. Flynn wanted to be with him like that. It was, without saying it, a proposal.

That had not at all been what Az was expecting.

He sucked in a breath, and moved to stand, only to wander over to the bedroom so he could grab his phone. He was still feeling...a lot. The fact that the newest thing he was feeling was happiness did not change the demon’s grip on his gut. He was in love with Flynn. He would one day have to say goodbye to him. And he didn’t want that. And he didn’t want to think about it at all. He texted the other man. While you’re out, get your favorite ice cream. Text me back when you have it. And then he grabbed up the electric blanket, curling up with it on one end of the couch.

F L Y N N

There wasn’t an awareness of his steps as he left the house and out into the chillier surrounding air. He hadn’t even bothered to grab a jacket on the way out, and it all of a few minutes for the cold to force him from his thoughts and into reality. The human honestly had no idea where he was going or if he even had a destination in mind. In truth, it felt a little like aimless wandering, the knowledge that he could potentially get as lost as he felt. The whole argument felt a little like someone had ripped the foundation of their relationship out from under him and replaced with a high wire suspended over a jagged, rocky bottom. One wrong move, and he would be at the bottom of it, far more broken than those hunters could have ever done. Hindsight was 20/20 and maybe walking away from Azraeth in the heat of the conversation hadn’t been the best move. This wasn’t just some petty argument that they could forgive and forget. It was a big deal, and one Flynn wasn’t sure they could just...brush under the rug. Something had to give, and that something had to start with actually talking about it.

The Paladins eyes closed as he let out a long, drawn-out sigh. Like an attempt to release the stress and the burden he felt. His steps halted, ceasing the attempt to get further away from their house. From Azraeth and the emotion surrounding them. Strangely enough, the further away he got, the stronger those feelings seemed to hit him. It was like a guiding hand, urging him to turn back around and go right the way he came from. He didn’t, not right away, rather than just stand there as if possessed. Until his phone buzzed in his pants pocket, which he fished out to find Azreath’s name flashing. The human bit his lip as he swiped to read it, his eyebrow furrowing at what was written. Ice cream? That was, quite literally, the last thing that was on his mind right now. Of course, the cold treat was called a ‘comfort food’ for a reason, and so maybe that was exactly what he needed. So, instead of answering the text message, he set off for nearly store. Maybe he wouldn’t eat it tonight, but there was nothing wrong with having ice cream in the house for later. A rainy day and what not.

Even though Azraeth had asked him to shoot a text once he had the ice cream, he didn’t respond. It was a matter of getting the fullest extent out of the time to himself, to clear away his thoughts. Like, what it was that they were supposed to do, if they couldn’t seem to agree on just what the end game for their relationship was. As much as he didn’t want to admit as much, Az had made one very clear point and one that Flynn couldn’t rightly refute. So long as his vampire stayed within the reach of the rift, then he never had to face the knowledge that he would never see the man again. Eventually, assuming there was attempt to get out, Az would be back. Almost as good as new, though potentially in a different body, which was potentially problematic. But if the Paladin died...that wasn’t an option. Azraeth would have to experience one of the worst human emotions, in the most human way possible. Grief. Loss. And maybe that really wasn’t fair. He just didn’t know how to fix that.


A Z R A E T H

So, as it turned out, Az was not very good at waiting. He legitimately looked at his phone, and then dropped it. Only to wait what felt like several minutes, only to retrieve the cell and look at it...only to realize it was exactly the same time it had been when he’d checked it before. And when the number finally ticked one up, and he nearly growled at the device. Why was Flynn not responding to him?! He stared at the device as if willing words to appear on the screen, and they weren’t doing that. Which was right around the time the bad thoughts began to creep in. Flynn had been hit by a car. His partner had left and immediately been slammed into by a bus. He’d fallen down a manhole. He had been struck by lightning. The Paladin had been randomly attacked by a super powerful fae. He was out there bleeding out onto the cold cement or asphalt or snow. And the last thing Az had said to him was that the Paladin was haunting him. What the ****?! What did that even mean? He had just been trying to make the point that he didn’t like knowing that one day he would have to give up the man he loved. The idea would have been unsettling for anyone.

And yet. If Flynn was gone now, was it worth the fight? He acted without thinking. His hands slid out in front of him. It was true that he was fairly sure if his partner had been harmed, he was almost certain he would have known. But that was beside the point. He focused. The air filled with static. And then the Paladin stood in front of him and Az was up on his feet in a moment, his arms slinging around a neck as his body collided with the other male’s at full force. Of course. His lover was facing away from him, so when he kissed, he ended up with his mouth pressed against the back of a neck. “You were gone for so long.” He said, his voice sounding absolutely pathetic. “Did you get the ice cream?” He asked.

F L Y N N

Those thoughts still churned as Flynn made his way toward the cabin they’d made their home, kicking at a pebble as he walked as if it might somehow be a link to whatever fucked up powers that be. The ones that got blamed ten times over for the strife of the world, though Flynn wasn’t entirely sure that he thought they existed. Whoever ‘they’ might be. That didn’t change the fact that he sure enjoyed kicking the **** out of his substitute for them if they did. Due to his lack of attention to his surroundings and simply following the steps he had come to memorize that carried him so often to and from their sanctuary, he hadn’t realized how close to home he actually was when he felt it. His gaze lifted to see that he couldn’t have been more than a few minutes away when that familiar tug warned of an incoming sensation that he still hated, but accepted as a part of life he had to just deal with. A summoning. It might as well have been Azreath’s calling card, at least in Flynn’s case. One blink of his eyes later and he was standing in the living room and without a chance to catch his breath before he was slammed into from behind. He wasn’t braced for it and stumbled forward a step or two before managing to turn his head to find the vampire at his back.

“We should work on your concept of time…” he replied with a small, albeit lacking, smile. That was a fairly common thing with his partner, the notion that he had left the man alone for far longer than was necessary. Sometimes, that might have been true. Others, not so much, but that wasn’t really the point. “I did manage to get the ice cream before your impatience got the better of you, though.” Flynn held up on the bag on his finger, the actual container obscured by the plastic. “Why did I need it, exactly?” he asked, as if it wasn’t obvious that he was meant to eat it. Az certainly couldn’t, though that didn’t prevent the emergence of a particularly inappropriate thought from coming to mind as it what else he could do with it.

A Z R A E T H

The sound of Flynn’s voice was a soothing sound. The feel of his skin was a salve to the vampire’s emotional wounds. That was one of the things he had not thought about when he demanded his lover turn for him. Would he miss the mortal’s warmth once his heart stopped beating? Would he crave the erratic way in which the Paladin’s heart beat when their bodies were tangled together? He squeezed tighter against his lover, and inhaled slowly so that he could drink the scent of his partner from the air and let it filter into his brain like some sort of drug. Yeah. Okay. So they hadn’t been separated for all that long, but the vampire had been antsy since his partner had left the house. He’d immediately wanted Flynn right there for him to hold, but he had given the other man some much needed space. For like. Ten minutes. Aka. An eternity of moments in the heart of the desolate. He pulled himself away reluctantly and swallowed, which made his adam’s apple jump up and then settle back into place. He was grinning, and it was a real expression, but it was one that didn’t just carry the stripes of happiness, but those of a dozen other emotions. It wasn’t that toothy, all encompassing, ready for anything expression that said he was the happiest he had ever been.

It also wasn’t tragic. Not really. “I love you.” He said. And then there was the sound of a sob. And he grabbed his partner’s arm, yanking him firmly so that he could shove Flynn *** first onto the seat. He then curled up right beside him, tucking into a side. “I want you to eat ice cream while we watch a romantic comedy or five. I’m thinking we need to at least watch A Walk to Remember. Maybe The Fault in Our Stars, and Me Before You.” He decided. “I want to have a good cry. I mean gross snotty, unattractive vampire crying. But also I need you to be here because I can’t work through this alone. You’re my…” He wasn’t sure exactly what to say. Or how to say it. “You’re part of me. I can’t be whole unless you’re here to help me be myself. Also sex. We should do that. But not when I’m snotty and gross, obviously.” Obviously. He eyed his partner, waiting for his input on how they were going to be spending their evening.

F L Y N N

Odd, how one could feel two warring emotions at once in regards to one person. He wasn’t angry so much as frustrated, and even then, he couldn’t have said what he was even frustrated about. He understood. To an extent. It hadn’t been a request made out of nowhere, with no rhyme or reason. There was one aspect of Azraeth’s words that he couldn’t have denied, even if he’d wanted to. He had very nearly died. Az had very nearly lost him. He had been so tied up in the details that he hadn’t gotten to the point of looking at the bigger picture. There had been no time lost in going from 0 to 60, without a pause to really consider what he was saying ‘no’ to, and a part of him knew he owed the vampire more than that. Owed the man he loved more than that. And on the counter side to all of that, was just...contentment. A state of feeling as if he were exactly where he was supposed to be. It had the effect of calming the storm in his eyes, though the aftermath to so much raw emotion left that gaze dark, like a wildfire that had finally gone out. The sentiment offered by Az had his mouth opening, but the words never made it out before he was yanked to the couch.

A vampire was tucked into his side, the dogs apparently felt it was safe to leave the bedroom to end up at his feet and all he could do was sort of...deflate. The Paladin shifted, temporarily propping up his partner to escape out from under him. It took him all over a minute to take the ice cream to the kitchen and to return without it, because he honestly lacked any kind of appetite. Even for something sweet. “I’ll have to make a hard pass on eating the ice cream, but…” he began, dropping back down to the couch and immediately pulling Azraeth back in against his chest. “I will sit through the gross, snotty vampire tears that won’t make you any less attractive because I love you.” His hold on his partner tightened, head falling to rest against the top of the other man’s. After the stress of what only made up a portion of the night, he honestly just wanted to have him close. To keep him there. “I love you,” he repeated in little more than a whisper. “Put on your movie.”

A Z R A E T H

It was, after a fashion, the pause he had been looking for. Though perhaps the argument itself was over. One of the hallmarks of their relationship had been, from the beginning, a strong pattern of communication. Maybe Az hadn’t gotten the answer he really wanted. Yet he seemed strangely warm in the moments after the two of them were rejoined. The idea of eternal romance was...well. Romantic. A lot of marriages ended in divorce, and most people never got that Notebook moment, where they fell in love, grew old, and died together within seconds of each other. The vampire had been shaken, but was it worth giving up his happiness, to avoid the pain of the future? Why was he so special, that he should have something that nobody else really got? Already, he had been blessed more than most. So he was silent as Flynn got up and went to put the ice-cream away. Then his lover returned and he was sat on a lap, wiggling back into a chest for the sake of comfort. And the Paladin said those words twice. The ones that were their own type of praise. The ones the vampire craved.

He half turned to drag a lone palm over a jaw. His fingers slowly pressed over cheek and behind an ear as he kissed the corner of a mouth. “I love you too.” He said. And then, in a lower tone, softly against an ear, he whispered. “If you die, I’m going to bind your soul to a charm, and make you watch Care Bears for like a decade.” He grinned then, and reached for the remote. Almost all of his movies had been moved to digital format, backed up both on ‘the cloud’ and on both an entertainment server and a portable hard drive, the latter of which was kept in a fireproof box along with several other important things, like his falsified legal documents (the ones on which he was William Carpenter). It only took a few button hits to pull up Me Before You, and then it began to play. He slumped then, easily fitting against the other man’s body.

F L Y N N

It could have been a sweet moment. Something softer and more intimate to combat the tension that still permeated the air of their small home. Instead, it was shifted by means of humor in typical Azraeth fashion, and the Paladin’s gaze narrowed on that grin even as the corners of his mouth twitched upward. The sly comment that sat on the tip of his tongue stayed there until the other man had selected the movie and leaned back, allowing his hold to tighten once more. Turning his head so that his lips brushed across his partner’s cheek, he mirrored that grin, “I hope you like the Care Bears, then. If I know you, and you actually bound my soul to a charm...that charm would never leave your person. Of course you’d find a way to keep me for an eternity some way or another.” A joke, yes, but not one that Flynn felt was too far out in left field. Maybe Az wouldn’t actually bind his soul to a charm, but the concept of finding some way to feel as though he still had some remaining connection to the Paladin wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Plus, the notion of haunting the hell out of the vampire (for eternity or not) wasn’t totally unappealing. But that was neither here nor there, since he wasn’t dead or dying.

He could, though. There was the potential for ‘immortality’ but it came with limitations. The last few weeks were evidence enough to the fact that he wasn’t infallible, Nifty paladin healing was only capable of so much. With his face still tucked against Azraeth’s, the human couldn’t have been paying any less attention to the movie as it began. The vampire’s words played back in his head ten times over. All of them, from the moment they had entered the house. The television was just background noise, a buzzing in his ears that was just loud enough to be distracting from his thoughts, but not from the emotion swirling right at the surface. Uncertainty now among them as it clawed at his reserve. On the one hand, staying human didn’t mean he was dead in another 50 years of old age or disease. They could have hundreds of years together before that time came that luck turned against him, but with that came the knowledge that hundreds of years is a long time to have someone and suddenly lose them. At that point, two lives would have become one. Like two vines woven together in such a way that it would be impossible to cut one down without doing significant damage to the other. On the other hand, if he gave up his humanity for Azraeth and willingly turned, was it naive to think that their love was capable of withstanding eternity?

Flynn’s nose immediately wrinkled at the thought, all too aware of where that kind of defeatist thoughts came from. He just hadn’t had one like it in awhile. Ultimately, it was that thought that pushed him to utter quietly against Azraeth’s ear, “I know what I said, but I’m amending my answer. And before you jump to conclusions, it’s still not exactly the one you want to hear…” The Paladin waited until he knew he had his partner’s attention before continuing with a soft sigh. “...I’ll think about it.”


A Z R A E T H

I will think about it. Far from a promise, the words were not the proverbial seal of the king, and yet nobody would have been surprised had Az immediately jumped to that conclusion. He was, at times, easily derailed by his own enthusiasm, and it seemed that Flynn was moving towards acquiescing with his desires. As such, it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of normalcy (for the vampire) to immediately celebrate, maybe get up and do a little jig. His response was far more tame. The Mystic lifted a hand so that he could drag his fingertips over his partner’s jaw, carefully pulling until he could seal his lips against where mandible and neck seemed to connect. After all, when the cat got the canary, it rarely ever yowled its delight. No, it feasted slowly after playing with its prey for a short time. He was excited. Eternity was a very long time, and there were glimmers of hope. So while his response was more subdued than normal for the vampire, it was as intense as ever behind his eyes, in the way he moved, and the inherently primal and territorial manner in which his hands pressed over the Paladin’s flesh.

He was silent though for a time. There were, of course, a number of factors for Flynn to take into account. One of those was that he would surely outlive his little brother. His brother’s children. His brother’s children’s children. If there was a God or a heaven, being a paladin perhaps assured him a place there, and if he died noble and human, then perhaps it meant he would one day go back to the grace of his family after his departing. There was, after all, some evidence for an after-life in the form of the Shadow Realm. If the Paladin became like Az, that meant he was going to be stuck forever between the world of the living and the realm of darkness. It meant he would lose everything and everyone he loved at some point or another. Save for Az. It was a selfish thing the Mystic asked, and he knew it. But just because something was selfish did not make it totally bad.

“I love you.” He whispered finally, as his response. The night had become normal once more. They were curled up together, and Az was enjoying the pleasant drunken sensation of having that skin-to-skin contact. There was a movie playing. Though sometimes it was music, sometimes that music was made by Flynn. There was something terribly domestic about their romance. More than ever, Azraeth was reminded that the Paladin was his comfort, and his constant companion. The man was one of the few people he saw every single night, and to have him suddenly gone; it would surely be like missing part of himself. The conversation could halt though. Wait. Because no argument was worth seeing the brightness in Flynn’s eyes darken, nor was it worth watching the smile leave his face.

“We should pack for the trip tonight.” He mentioned, as if he’d just remembered, his hands having dropped to grip the arms curled around his body.


F L Y N N

Once upon a time, he had been a master of “the mask.” An appearance of total indifference to the thoughts and feelings of those around him, a persona he kept on display for others. It kept others at a distance, allowing him the safety of knowing that no one was close enough to play on his weaknesses or faults. It wasn’t something that had suddenly shifted overnight, nor was it gradual when one considered it had been a handful a months, but...his ability to do so with Azraeth was just about nonexistent at that point. Granted, even if he tried, the vampire knew him well enough to take an educated guess (and he’d probably be right), or he’d just outright ask knowing full well that Flynn wouldn’t lie to him. As such, he didn’t bother to hide the conflicting emotions in his gaze, or the slightly tense set of the muscles of his back. He had said that he would think about it, and he would...but the weight of the decision was already heavy on his shoulders. In essence, the request was a simple one. Uncomplicated. The only one making it more complex than it needed to be was him. The strange part was that it wasn’t his family that seemed to unsettle him the most, though it was far from a thought on the backburner. It came second only to the notion that basing his eternity on a decision to turn for Azraeth seemed...naive? Maybe even that wasn’t the right word for it, but the circulating thoughts came in the form of ‘what if’s.’ It felt a little like tattooing the man’s name across his forearm (though that example was seriously lacking when he had considered a ******* dragon tattoo). Eternity was a very long time, and life had a funny way of turning even the best laid plans on their ***.

And that should have been all he needed to know to make the decision. Once upon a time, it would have been. Except that this was different. This was Azraeth. He’d never been so devoted to any one person in his life, but devotion didn’t guarantee an eternity together. Any number of things were capable of going wrong, bringing a sudden stop to a relationship that went 0 to 60 in the span of weeks, rather than months or years. And maybe that was playing a role in his hesitation. How could he judge the possibility of an eternity when he didn’t even know what a year long relationship looked like? Then again, he’d just said he was choosing to spend him life with the vampire, and was it really all that different if he did so human or not? His life lacked the expiration date of most humans, already, and there was no way to know that he’d have Azreath through that, either. So, was it really so different? In that case, those famous words would just change a little bit. From ‘death do us part’ to… ‘till we we can’t make it work, anymore.’ And that was every relationship, ever. Right? ...right?

Flynn’s eyebrows furrowed as the quiet sentiment yanked him out of his thoughts, the silence having allowed him to ruminate to the point that he barely registered the press of lips against his skin. “I know,” he whispered, his hold on the man tightening for a brief moment before loosening once more. “I love you, too.” he continued, his voice having gotten even softer, his eyes trained on some insignificant spot on the floor. It took another moment before he finally turned his head a fraction to look at his partner with a small smile. “You want to pack for a trip that is still weeks away? What’s the motivation? Being over-prepared or just over-eager?”

A Z R A E T H

Arms tightened around him, and Az was immediately pleased. On the topic of physical contact, when it came to Flynn, the question of ‘was there ever too much?’, there was but one answer. ‘**** no’. However, when that grip around him loosened, there was a question left in the air for him to answer. Why exactly had he brought up their trip to the B&B? By all rights, they could have tossed together a couple of travel bags right before and been totally fine. The only things of Az’s which required any special preparation involved rituals, and he was planning to do nothing work related on their faction. In fact. He intended to spend that entire time enjoying the warm accommodations. Of course. The term ‘enjoy’ here really meant ‘running around completely naked and making sex eyes at his boyfriend.’ At its core, the trip was meant to be a way to escape from the stresses of living in Harper Rock. No hunters. No vampires. No politics. No worries about zombies or monsters or...anything really.

Rather than answer the question directly, the Mystic slowly twisted up and out of the other man’s grip. His knee found itself between his lover’s thighs - pressed down so as to carefully avoid doing any damage to some of his favored goods. He let one arm sling around Flynn’s neck, and the palm of the other gripped one of the Paladin’s shoulders so that he could lean in still closer. Their foreheads touched, and he was practically drinking in his human companion’s breath with each passing moment. He let a few seconds pass like that, because he enjoyed the intimacy of it, the quietness of the exchange before he suckled a lower lip right into his mouth to taste and hold there like a sweet, soft candy. His tongue pressed it up against the roof of his mouth and his teeth tightened just enough to make sure it couldn’t get away. He couldn’t properly see Flynn from that angle of course. He could see part of his jaw. His neck. He could hear his heart pounding. He could feel the faint pool of warmth near his knee.

He growled softly, like a wolf who, when enjoying a delicious meal, had been approached, and wanted to make it clear what was his. He only pulled back when that softness had swollen and looked a little bruised. “Maybe.” He began as the hand on a shoulder slipped up to push through Flynn’s dark hair, kneading into the roots, and caressing the scalp. “Maybe what I want is for us to go to our bedroom for other reasons.” The implication was poorly veiled, and didn’t honestly make much sense. There were plenty of times the pair had enjoyed the revelries of copulation and mating all over their home. There was no mystical ward which kept all of those activities to the bedroom. So it was very clear that there was something else going on, and equally clear perhaps that Az totally wasn’t going to talk about it. Of course. As already evidenced, Azraeth never kept secrets from his partner. So how he was managing at that moment defied some belief.

He had thoroughly messed up the other man’s hair as he fully pulled away, his fingers trailing down a shoulder, past a bicep and forearm. He ended up gripping two of his lover’s fingers, and he used those to drag the other man up to his feet. “But you should get that ice cream. I’d like to see the different places you might enjoy licking it clean from.” He commented as he nipped over the other man’s jaw in passing, and then ambled his steps towards their personal little sanctum, having released a hand, and left his partner standing there right in front of the couch in their living room.

F L Y N N

Azraeth twisted out of his hold and the Paladin wrinkled his nose at the man for his decision. Everything had finally settled, even if those early thoughts continued to cycle through on an endless loop. Like a ferris wheel that never stopped to let off its passengers. Except, in this case, the only passenger was Flynn, and the constant movement was beginning to make him sick to his stomach. It was his first real clue that this conversation was going to haunt him well past the point where he made any actual decision. Like a bad breakup where those feelings of hurt and betrayal seemed to creep up out of nowhere, just when things started to look up. Of course, this wasn’t a breakup. In fact, it was basically the opposite of one, and it wouldn’t be hurt and betrayal he felt. It would just be the constant reminder that Azraeth would still be waiting for that answer. Wanting to know if he could count on the possibility of a true eternity or live with the chance that he could be sent into a spiral of grief anytime Flynn so much as left the house.

That was an unsettling thing to go through, though. Flynn was notoriously known for keeping relatively calm and rational in most situations. Situations where anyone could have fallen to pieces with anxiety, agony, or frustration and no one could have faulted them for it. It helped that he and Azraeth’s communication allowed them to usually come out of things on the same side. It made keeping everything together pretty easy. Now, put them on opposites of the issue, especially one where their relationship was involved, and the Paladin felt restless and uneasy. The vampire referred to Flynn as an anchor, grounding him in the chaos of the city as he grounded the others he loved. Right then, he felt anything but solid and steady. More like a helium balloon caught up in the breeze. Up until the point that their foreheads touched, which was all of a few seconds after Azraeth moved. Everything just got sort of quiet, then. Like the silence between them, so were his thoughts. The present took precedence over what he could worry about in a an hour or two. Or even tomorrow. He wasn’t sure if it said more about Az or himself that his attention could be easily redirected so long as the focus was the vampire.

The animalistic growl was a fairly accurate representation when his mouth was held captive by a man with fangs for teeth. Once it was released and Az pulled back, his tongue moved along the abused lip as it tingled with the vague taste of the vampire left behind. With a hand in his hair, he followed the touch as if to get more of it, but his eyes were trained on his partner as eyebrows rose in question. “Other reasons, huh?” he asked, trailing off at the end in a way to suggest that Azraeth should fill in the blanks of his own statement. Naturally, he made no attempts to do any such thing, instead moving back from the couch and dragging the Paladin with him. There was a mention of the ice cream that Flynn had abandoned to the freezer, leaving him to stare at the other man like he had suddenly sprouted another head. The worst part was...it wasn’t the fact he had brought it up that had Flynn feeling like a fish out of water (though he certainly felt other ways on that front), but the envisioned mess that was guaranteed in the process. He had come to live with Az’s moments of simply throwing things wherever they might land (i.e. ritual ingredients when he decided it was time to sort through them), but his habits hadn’t changed that much.

But Azraeth was already walking away before he could utter a single word, left to stare after him with his own mouth slightly ajar. There was no way that wasn’t a planned exit and Flynn wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about it, other than the fact that he wanted to follow him. Immediately. And that was probably the point, but his feet were rooted to the spot as he tried to work through what just happened. “Did I...just get played?” he asked without bothering to raise his voice as he, finally, moved one foot in front of the other to the kitchen to grab the ice cream. Before he left, he wasted no time in opening it up and grabbing spoon, shamelessly taking a bite as he wandered toward their bedroom. He had a thing for peanut butter, and it was swirled throughout the vanilla ice cream in a fashion that guaranteed he’d be adding extra to it on any other occasion. He appeared in the doorway of their bedroom, though his attention was on the carton in his hands as he scooped out another bite. “Alright, what are you up to?” he asked, popping the spoon into his mouth and leaving it there as he sought out the vampire.