dirtyandtrue | PSL - In sickness and in Death

PSL - In sickness and in Death

It was hours before Matthew and Joslin returned to the house with a distinct lack of corpses, and when Matt walked in, he was only in his boxers. There was a empty glaze to his one very dilated eye and his step was slightly unsteady as he made his way up the stairs and into his bedroom. He felt scraped on the inside, torn raw and spritzed with salt water but full and blissfully high. The bitter weeping that had over taken the vampire as they had left the house before had left him nauseous and famished all at the same time. Crying meant spending blood and he'd been sadly low before hand.

The words that Blaine had snarled at him at the hospital, the anguished sound of his name before and the final soft cry of a however temporarily broken man echoed in his head, a mantra of guilt to a logical reassurance. It overrode the euphoria, but riding this kind of self deprecating high was something he'd done for 70 years after he was embraced. It was an old friend and some part of his soul was nostalgic.

But history really did repeat itself because an hour later, Lucchi was rapping on Matt's door and letting himself in. Being German and knowing full well how fluent Matt was in it, the elder vampire took to his native tongue as he shut the door behind himself. "Louis. Where have you gotten off too?"

"Here," he called from the balcony and Lucchi padded to the open french doors, hands stuffed into his pocket. Matt had found pants, but sat shirtless and barefoot on the just wide enough railing with a bottle in between his legs and a cigarette in his hanging fingers. One elbow was propped up on his knee and he didn't bother to even look to see who it was.

"I should throw you into the dawn."

A long handful of seconds passed. "Fuck you Luch." It lacked bite and edge; Matthew was numb and blank at the moment. Just absorbing, instead of reacting.

Lucchi dragged one of the chairs over and plopped down, crossing his ankles up on the banister. "It has been over half a century since we've spoken and that's your lead?"

"What do you want me to say?" He took a long drag and Lucchi knew him well enough to know that he would talk again because Matt was always weak to the level no bullshit stare that was boring into the side of his head. "I broke him, Lucchi. I killed and damned him and saved him and broke him and all in one glorious blaze of fire.... I can't find it in myself to be as sorry as I should be."

Lucchi studied his wards face carefully. "You feel too much."

"Oh fuck off," Matt swore, dropping his legs out to saddle the stone. "I tried, swear to god I did. The thought of losing him was-"

"Was too much," Lucchi interrupted with an impatient tone. "Yes, I know. And now you're feeling sorry for yourself."

"No," Matt corrected. "I'm not."

Lucchi scoffed out a laugh, turning his head away from the bullshit answer. "Christ, Louie, who do you think you're talking to? Do you remember what you did after each time you had a love taken from you? Seventy years you spent sulking like the donkey's ass you are. And to what? Have a break down in London that was remembered for centuries as one of the most violent random acts with a body count over 30? That's what got you shipped over to me. Disregard your guilt, you should be above sulking at your age."

Matt pinned him with a hard but unsteady gaze. "I've done a lot, but never had my own heart murdered." Lucchi raised his eyebrows, "And will you be blaming me for granting your request? Because I have no issue going into that boy's room and tearing his head from his shoulders. Then you have had him murdered and for nothing at all. Your little game of house is over Louie."

"It wasn't house," he snapped at the man, angry at the suggestion that this was anything close to a game.

"No? Tell me, why'd you bother? Why risk it? You're not a stupid man. It would have hurt you to watch him die, but time passes. And just like the other two, he would ease and fade into nothing. But now you risk him hating you and leaving. What will you do then, hmm? How much of your feelings with validate chasing him down and binding him to you so you can have your sick hope of happiness? You know how this could end and I will not hear you simpering about it in a few centuries."

Matt could say nothing and he stared at the rock beneath him. Would he go that far? Would the degradation of his humanity that had been so bolstered by Blaine and the life that he brought with him start to fade and send Matthew into the doors of the Elder Kindred's madness? He'd made a mistake that he wasn't sorry for but he was endlessly guilt for.

"What should I do?" He sounded younger in the moment, with a desperation behind the words that hinted at just how deeply this night had rocked him.

Lucchi sighed and shifted his feet. "Let him come back to you but do not let him position himself above you. You must maintain your strength. What's done is done, so clean up the mess you've put yourself in and get back to your duties. He was right to reprimand you - he makes you a fool and as a Prince, you are better then your whining tonight." Matt tsk'ed and looked over the balcony edge, but he took his mentors words to heart. A long silence hung between the two as Matt re-lit his cigarette and took a couple of lazy hits.

"Thank you for doing this."

"Like I said. You will owe me." The elder Brujah stood up while his reminder settled into Matt's head. Owing a favor to Lucchi was never a good or promising thing - the man was barbaric, even to the rest of their Clan which had made him perfect for beating Matthew's young fledgling heartache and rage under control. "Tomorrow night, I will fly back to Germany. The next time I see the both of you, I expect him prepared and ready to be presenting, like the old codes say."

Matt nodded mutely and Lucchi nodded back before turning away and starting back into the house. Matt looked back out into the sky that was just starting to threaten the darkness with light and knew he had maybe twenty minutes before the sun would peak it's first rays over the horizon. Long enough to finish his cigarette, anyway.

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Of course, the moment he was sharply reminded that things weren't the same, would never be the same again, Matt's voice floated over his shoulder. His brow furrowed and he was reluctant to flee the kitchen now. He didn't want to run from it while Matthew watched his back, presumably for signs of how he was feeling that night. The comment doesn't need a response, but he wasn't going to play sullen teenager and give him the silent treatment. He was too old for those kinds of games and didn't really feel like wasting the time on it. If he had been back in his own universe he would have been taking care of a child at his current age. His heart lurched at what was lost to him through no fault of either of them. There was no way Matthew was responsible for him ending up in Phoenix. If he had been, he had managed to keep the secret for over a decade.

He gave a sigh to try and relax himself before he answered. "Of course they do," and he wanted to sound nonchalant but it came out tight instead. "Those slackers haven't been shopping or cooking like I taught them." He loved to cook, to eat, and now the crucial part of it was missing. He could eat it, but he'd have to throw it up later. It wasn't worth the trouble.

Edited (Lol crappy grammar and tone changes all over) 2014-11-09 21:15 (UTC)

Nonchalance would have set off more warning flags then tightness and Matt was both relieved and pained to hear it. How one handled grief was important, says the hypocrite but in a species so riddled with cracks, flaws, and demented broken minds - how Blaine took to it would be carefully watched. Matt had chosen Lucchi for a reason because there was no way in hell he would damn Blaine to the Malkavian's insanity. Besides that, the Brujah's were a clan of rebels and antagonizers. The blonde might have made a fine Venture to, but that was neither here nor there.

Joslin and Maurice finally got down the hall, glancing at Matt as the Russian led his elder companion into the room. They'd talked about how they should deal with Blaine now that he was a fledgling and had ended up, as always, on a friendly but varying opinions.

Joslin strode in and up next to Blaine, clasping a hand on his shoulder. "Already cooking, huh? You'll forgive us for leaving the refrigerator bare," he continued as he fished into the drawer and pulled out a fork before snatching up one of the plates and smoothly turning on his heel to lean back against the edge of a counter. The truth of it was that the kitchen had seemed hauntingly empty while Blaine had been in the hospital and neither of them had wanted to sit in the vortex of a missing space.

Maurice fetched his own fork and picked up one of the omelettes to investigate it for a moment. "Looks a little over done to me, that hospital didn't burn the taste out of you did it?" he questioned, having fully embraced his old man 'No Fucks Given' stage of life more then a few years back. The mousy man had grown out of the slick greasy look of his youth and age had made his eyebrows look like fuzzy caterpillars, adding a comical cartoony edge to his good natured, however seriously toned, ribbing.

With both Blaine and Lucchi in the house, the addition of the brawny man's footsteps down the stairs put the shine on the burst of activity. Barefoot, shirtless and hoisting a large swath pale radical scars criss-crossing across the tops of his shoulders and down his back, the Eldest vampire strode into the room and glanced around. His gaze landed on the third plate, the tension in Blaine's shoulders and the rest of the room and grunted. "I hope we're not in the habit of wasting resources," he said as he walked over and plucked a piece of fruit from it.

Blaine hadn't turned around to look at Matt, but he couldn't say he was really looking at the omelette anymore either. He was trapped between options when the sounds of familiar footsteps forced him to relax or look like a statue while standing in the one non-bed having room in the house where he was usually the most comfortable.

Of course, that loss of tension was short-lived as Blaine gave a minute jump at the clap of a hand on his shoulder. He gave Joslin an unimpressed look, but before he could reply Maurice was giving one of his entirely too critical reviews before he even ate the food. If he hadn't known the man for a dozen or so years he might have thought he was serious with that dry, humorless way of speaking.

"If you've ever had hospital food, then you know it may very well have burned a few critical tastebuds," the blonde retorted. "Fortunately for me, I don't have to worry about 'over done' food anymore, now do I?"

He gave Maurice a slightly smug look and then turned to the pitcher he had left on the counter. He wasn't okay with being dead, but the jokes flowed easy and more than anything he didn't want to trap Joslin and Maurice in an awkward position. No more than they already were, considering their hands in the smooth transition of his Embrace. "One day I'm going to tame your eyebrows for good," he said, looking over his shoulder for a second to eye the caterpillars that adorned the man's face. More than once he had trimmed them while Maurice slept.

The banter that had eased him a little went out the window with Lucchi's arrival. For a second, Blaine's anger started to simmer, but he clamped it down. Blaine was an instigator if there ever was one. He could be subtle, but there was no mistaking that he liked to jab and antagonize people when he was in the mood to do so. Now was apparently one of his more sarcastic moments. His tone was light as he responded to the elder vampire while opening the can of juice concentrate and dumping it into the pitcher. "It's called a refrigerator and a toaster oven. Or maybe it's been a while since you've been in a house with young men and forget their stomachs are bottomless."

Maurice liked playing the back and forth game of judging the meal but still consuming every bite, only to complain that there was something wrong with it. If there had been something wrong, his plates would never be as clean as they consistently were. At Blaine's snip back, Maurice raised his eyebrows. "Only if you're fine with sucking at something you excel at," he replied before shoving a large bite of food in his mouth. At the threat of eyebrow trimming, Maurice wiggled them at Blaine defiantly.

"Militarys are never known for giving out extra rations," Lucchi said, popping his stolen bite into his mouth. He didn't have to eat, but he, like Matthew, possessed the merit that allowed them fake it. There were a vast majority that couldn't eat or drink anything but blood at all. "And I don't keep a herd of young men." His yellow gaze landed back on Matt, who had rolled back out of the doorway as Blaine started in on the Elder and started down the hall towards his office. He had to get away from the moment before his chest exploded.

Blaine scoffed at that defiant waggle as he filled the pitcher with water from the filter on the faucet. He'd knock Maurice out and get the man's eyebrows waxed one day. Let him waggle those monstrous things then. "You can't suck and excel at the same time, oh wait," the blonde said, an edge of perversion curling the wolfish smile he aimed at the older man.

His eyes had followed that yellow gaze to see Matt disappearing around the corner of the doorway and whatever mirth he'd had smoothed out into neutral lines. Mixing up the juice with a large spoon he'd just pulled out of a drawer he turned to fully face the others and looked up at Lucchi. "This isn't a military camp and two men don't make a herd."

Maruice just rolled his eyes and crammed another bite of food in his mouth, but the sharp eye would notice the hint of a smirk trying to tug up his usually uncooperative lips. Joslin was almost done clearing his plate and he was taking all of it in with his normal stoic silence.

Lucchi shrugged. "Three and waste not want not. We're creatures of habit, get used to it." And so it was. Lucchi had spent more then his fair share under various armies and banners and there was an ingrained air that he couldn't ever get rid of. "I will be leaving in a few hours - You and I need to talk."

Blaine might have caught that slight tug of lips and something in him warmed. He set the pitcher down and went to get three- no, two glasses- and set them on the counter for them to pour glasses of juice for themselves. If he kept on doing things for them, they would let him wait on them hand a foot. It was something he had quickly learned upon finding out they were useless in the kitchen without explicit direction.

The new vampire tilted his head, indicating his attention was on Lucchi without looking directly at him until he had turned around again. "I suspect that we do," he agreed, whatever humor he'd had turning somber as he prepared to follow Lucchi off wherever he planned on dragging him to have a private conversation. Of course, he could be wrong and the vampire would spill it all out in front of Maurice and Joslin, but he doubted it.

Blaine cared more about the total completion of meals much more then they did. It wasn't that they were lazy, nor did they wanted him to wait on them, but the blond tended to beat them to the punch to the smaller meal oriented details.

Lucchi did indeed want Blaine off on his own, something he conveyed with a nod and another stolen bite of melon before he was padding out of the kitchen, expecting Blaine to be in tow. Joslin and Maurice exchanged glances and looked at Blaine, curious about what the men would talk about and smart enough to not ask. The eldest vampire lead them across the foyer and into the parlor, where he dropped his mass carefully into a chair. He let Blaine get in the room and take a moment to get comfortable before starting.

"I'm sure you feel it," The connection that they would share now, due to the continuation of Lucchi's line - a buzzing awareness that let him know that Blaine was near, "And in the end, you are my responsibility. I know the situation of your Embrace is... a tender point but I'd advise you to keep your head about you. Regardless of Louis's ability to govern, his history is with fledglings that are a little less... fresh and if I have to come back to clean up this mess, I will take a swath out of everyone's hide involved. You have been with him a while, right? You're familiar with the base rules of how we are to operate? Breaking rules is all well and good, but break these, and you'll light the fires and burn your entire world."

Blaine followed, also curious about what the larger vampire wanted to tell him. He gave a small shrug at the other two as they left the room to somewhere more private. He settled against the side of a small couch but didn't sit. Many years of training made standing a habit and it would take more than being turned to change it.

Yes, he felt Lucchi's presence in a way that was vaguely uncomfortable. It was a buzzing at the edge of his senses but not something that could really be ignored by him. At mentioning his Embrace as a 'tender point' gave the man A Look that conveyed just how grossly underplayed that word was to him. There were worse ways to be Embraced, but unlike when he became a Ghoul, his fundamental nature had changed and he could not go on living the same.

"Feel free to preemptively light a fire or throw me out into the sun," Blaine said dryly, but it wasn't at all a joke. "Then you won't have to worry about coming back, except to get whatever it is from 'Louis' that he promised you to get you to come all this way."

"I've got an open ended ticket on his ass and yours. There will be no suicide - fuckin' disgraceful. You were dead either way. Tuck away your fears, little man; there is no Heaven and there is no Hell. This, or blackness is all you got." He did not have time to tiptoe around this.

"He is a Prince. Court will deal with him harshly if he doesn't keep you in line, so don't fuck this up too much. Hate him, kill him in his sleep, I don't care, but don't sulk."

For some reason, Blaine was starting to find the whole thing funny. Him? Disgraceful? He had made his peace and was prepared to die with dignity. Now he got to flail around like a tadpole in a giant pond of hungry fish with fangs. "I wasn't afraid of true death. I had months to get over it. It was Matthew who feared it and this is where I am because of that."

He stared at Lucchi and didn't even bother to comment on the ludicrousy of saying he was sulking. Let the Matthew deal with the court. Blaine was going to do what was best for himself, now that he was forced to live an extended life.

Lucchi shrugged. "Take it as you like. He didn't fear your dying. He fears what he will do in its wake. You fell in love with an addict, what did you expect?"

That was certainly true. Matthew was an addict of the highest order, but that was a shitty excuse for what he had done and his face showed it. "I expected him to act like a damn Prince."

Which was partially a lie. He was hoping he would.

"Is that imply love is an addiction or have I been watching too many of those cheesy romcoms?"

"But he's not. He never was. He never will be," Lucchi chortled out with a breath. "He will always be that stubborn headstrong Lord's son, used to getting what he wants and taking most whatever punishment that effort entails.

My opinion on love aside, it doesn't matter what it is to anyone else, since that's not who we're talking about. For him, maybe. Happiness can be addicting." Lucchi shrugged again as he pushed back to his feet.

"Just like that fire hot rage." The one that burned most brightly under resentment and considering their clan, it felt like it needed to be pointed out.

Blaine let out an aggrieved sigh at the accurate description of Matthew: spoiled little rich kid. Even if he'd had to buckle down and study under a domineering father, he still got what he wanted and fuck everyone else if they didn't like it. Including Blaine.

At the mention of rage, the blonde's rage, said fledgling vampire looked up and stared at Lucchi with half lidded eyes and said nothing. He had every right to let his anger simmer for as long as he liked. As long as Lucchi didn't have to come back and beat the shit out of him and Matthew, it would be fine.

It was the truth. Matt was a born and bred asshole and he was the worst kind. He was nice about it.. Sometimes. Lucchi shrugged again and headed towards the door. Blaine had full and total rights to be pissed, Lucchi was just passing out a warning. Towards the open arch turned into through the arch and up the stairs to finish getting dressed so he could leave.

From the kitchen, Maurice and Joslin peered from their spots, curiously.

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PSL - In sickness and in Death

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