That meant they weren't pretty stories and fair enough. Most any story from that era wasn't pretty for one reason or another, point in fact - the reason that Matthew doesn't talk about his past in detail either. Areas were fine; France, Germany, Russia, Georgia, but he always skipped the details of who and why.
The Poor. No matter what era, the poor always had it the worst. Matthew had avoided Irland for.. unflattering reasons, but people stacked on top of people was not unique to the Emerald Isle.
"So true country is new to you... How long were you there?" He knew that Cass caught a ship, probably landed in New York and restarted his vampiric life there, but it was all guess work.
His jacket came off next, and got dropped behind himself on the mattress: a little extra something to lie back on later.
"I lived in tenements the whole time I was there. Was with me mum and dad up until the age of eighteen — then I moved in with me brother and his mates. Who it so happened were the Republican Brotherhood. They'd go out to the wetlands for trainin'. I tagged along, a coupla times."
It'd been quiet out there. He'd found it a bit unsettling then, too. Cassidy reached for the paper bag again to start laying out its contents.
"It wasn't another five years after that I was boardin' a ship across the Atlantic. Away from a dyin' country, to a place where anyone was supposed t'be able to make somethin' of himself."
He knew that much to be a myth, by now, but he didn't sound bitter. More nostalgic, for a time when he was still capable of believing in something as pure as that.
Matt watched his friend silently, taking in the tone of silence and the way Cassidy left the words and the way he busied his hands with his task. His heart went out to the man; it was a hard time for a lot of people.
"The Americas have had a hard go of things, the child nation that it is.." But they were still people, just as cruel, just as greedy. "I've lived the last couple of decades there, but it's only out of necessity. The old world is better now..
"I haven't run out of America yet." God help him, he'd actually liked the place, even after seeing the rotten truth behind its promise. Cassidy tossed off a shrug.
"Thought about it a few times. But you know what it's like when you've got all the time in the world."
Things got put off. Distractions got welcomed without a second thought. Excuses were so easily made.
"What about you? I don't hear ya goin' on about the fields of France all the time."
That truth was still there, somewhere, but Matthew, being the creature that he was with his long standing views, wasn't the one to argue America's possibilities. Those kind of idyllic notions were too youthful for his years.
Nodding his understanding, Matt left the door to amble within reach and lower himself smoothly to a cross-legged position on the floor in front of Cassidy. It wasn't his way of living, but he understood.
"France holds some.. less than pleasant memories. I've avoided its countryside for a century, moving through cities instead. Places that have room to hide me, to entertain me. Once I became a man, once I died.. The place where I lived was.. not to be sullied by my newly pained view." And he rarely ever talked about himself when he was alive, which made it all the more easier. "I've seen more of the rest of Europe's countryside then my own, but to be fair, she's a turbulent nation that was very dangerous to move through for many many years."
It was a weak excuse, he knew, but one he clung to.
"I shudder to think how the first Chateau De Vigny has survived the ages... Or if its even still standing.." It was. "My sister haunts me even now, I blame her, by and large.."
Cassidy's hands kept working, now in the midst of a ritual they could conduct almost without looking. The burner was on the floor between the two of them. The needles, still inside their sterile plastic containers, sat on the blanket next to Cassidy, ready to be deployed.
"Mm. Families, eh?" Cassidy couldn't a hundred percent relate — his family life had been fine, all things considered — but he could empathize, and keep listening if Matt had more to say on the topic.
"Mm." Matt considered saying nothing else, sober enough to stop his own rambling, but he couldn't help but put the point on it.
"It would have been better if she'd died when she was meant to. Instead, she took ten years of my human life and several decades of my afterlife before she was finally put into the ground.. Be glad your family didn't follow you into the Americas.. Or fallen into the same hole that earned you fangs...
But I suppose those are stories for other times, hmm?" No need to bring down a night any further with such pathetic tellings and tales of what he used to be.
"You were still human when you hit America's shores though, yes?"
Cassidy pursed his lips, shook his head. "No, that was a coupla years prior. I tried makin' it work in Ireland after I'd got changed, like, but things kept goin' downhill. I mean, it turned out all right for the country in the end, but at the time, people just kept bloody dyin'. It woulda been the smart idea to get outta dodge in any case."
He leaned forward the hold the spoon full of powder over the flame.
"Hell, at the time, I hadn't yet realized I'd stopped agin'. That first decade, I was still workin' it all out."
Matt nodded, idly watching the process as Cassidy prepped something to take the edge off the talk they had fallen into. Matt didn't often talk 'shop' as it were and every once and a while, it was nice.
"I left France for similar reasons. Reasons our friend Grataire are all too aware of. Sometimes its just best to leave. I must admit, I hate that you were left to your own devices in fledgling years.. How'd you manage to not massacre people?"
He asks because it was Matthew's largest problem. Too wrapped up in fury and pain, Matt was chaos on wheels and had caused quite a few problems. He was lucky to have survived, to be honest.
Massacre might be taking it a touch too far, in Cassidy's experience. He didn't have a Brujah's anger to contend with — at the same time, regular, pedestrian, human anger could be enough of a problem. And there had been a drive to a certain type of violence that he'd needed to learn how to control.
"Tremendous quantities of alcohol, mate. At least when I was three sheets to the wind, I wouldn't be able t'land all me punches. Lucky I didn't inherit me dad's tendency t'get sullen after a few pints."
He glanced up from the melting powder to Matt's face. "Are you gonna wanna take this through your blood, or mine?"
Matt scoffed lightly, thinking about Cassidy at that age swinging wildly at a group of men, spitting nothing but accent and rage. Amusing only in hindsight - he could relate to the needs that arose when coping.
"Yours," he replied, eyes still locked down on the flame. "It never works as well when I inject it myself and I'd hate to waste goods."
He glanced up briefly and realized he felt a bit awkward. To mitigate that, he leaned back, propping his weight on his wrists and ignoring the fact that he was sitting like a 22 year old collage student with no class to speak of.
"I ended up getting sent off to Germany. A mountain of opium wasn't enough to settle or sate my needs. I'm damned near conservative now, if you can believe that."
Damned near — “But not quite, yeah?” Cassidy asked with a knowing smirk. He had his own visions of young master DiVigny in his bloody chateau, passing out on the expensive furniture and getting into snappish fights with Mummy and Pa-pa.
Almost ready. He rotated the spoon handle toward Matt, prompting him to hold it for a bit while Cassidy tied the rubber cord around his bicep.
“Course, the more I built up a tolerance, the better I got at fightin’ under the influence. These days, I can take out five wankers on four lines of coke and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.” He tore the plastic packaging open with his teeth, then brought out the needle and positioned it over the pool of heroin.
The elder vampire grinned, light not quite reaching his eyes. "And risk my bad reputation? Never."
He'd laugh at Cassidy's visions if he knew them, if only because they were so vastly wrong. Yes, he had always lived in opulence, but what they had in wealth, they lacked in love and compassion, and it made for a harder life. A harder man.
The spoon was taken carefully and held still. "That's impressive. I meant to ask you how you got into something as nasty as tranquilizers the other night. I've seen and heard some extreme ends to getting properly fucked up, but that's new, even to me."
Cassidy frowned. He was never certain how much he was being judged every time Matt talked about tranqs like that.
"There is nothin' wrong with a bit of ketamine, Matthew," he said, his tone mildly scolding. "Christ, especially once you're comparin’ tranqs to some of the other street drugs. Krokodil — ever heard of that one? Fuckin' nasty shite. I'd rather drink engine coolant."
So... okay, maybe everybody had their line. He just happened to figure Matt's was wrong.
"Though of course, given the option —" Cassidy pressed on the plunger, squeezed out the bubbles. The syringe was prepped. "— heroin's a bloody treat."
He offered Matthew the syringe, then leaned in and held out his arm.
Matt smirked at the tone, eyebrows lifting faintly with the passing amusement. There was no judgement here, aside from a base concern about Cassidy's concern about his general well-being. Yes, he'd survived 119 years so far, but Matt wasn't sure how long it would take the man to burn himself out.
The idea of drinking engine coolant drew a face as he carefully set the hot spoon down and took the syringe instead.
"I'd regurgitate some 'Your body is a temple' bullshit, but I won't. Instead, I'll put out a friendly concern for the overall health and state of your veins. You keep tattoos, so that tells me you don't heal like I do." Taking Cassidy's arm into his free hand, Matt shifted, unfurling one leg to sit with knee drawn up as he places the needle. "So how much you do heal would be a question to ask, if you were interested."
If he wasn't trying to murder himself, however slowly.
"Tiny pinch," he muttered before sliding the needle under Cassidy's skin and into the vein, slowly depressing the plunger until the syringe was empty. The needle was withdrawn and set aside as his other hand slid up to untie the bit around Cass's bicep.
As Matthew started depressing the plunger, Cassidy remembered to turn on his pulse. The tattoo on the back of his hand fluttered its wings, and his heart started beating at its usual too-steady rhythm. But the pace didn’t matter — the point was, when Matt pulled off the tourniquet, the drug moved through Cassidy’s veins faster than the speed of molasses. His eyelids dropped, his lips pouted softly. He hadn’t had a rush like that in a long while.
“Mate, I haven’t the first clue how any of it really works.” When he’d found focus again, he looked for Matthew’s eyes. “I’ve lost limbs and had me skin burnt off, and the tattoos grow back. So how’s that for healin’?”
He could have said something about how he had noticed himself aging, very gradually. He knew he didn’t have the face of a 19-year old anymore.
He felt like mentioning that would bring the mood down further. He’d sit with it on his own time, maybe. Maybe he wouldn’t.
Cassidy leaned back until he was lying down over his jacket. “D’you think I could do all right, out here?”
Matthew watched with the same fascination as always when he got to see the drug have its way with a fresh vein. No, Cassidy wasn't a 19 year old face, but it was still a good one. Fitting for the man that wore it. Matt didn't question that, oddly.
"Impressive and confusing," he said, understanding that with that, the question itself became pointless. Cassidy's breed of vampire continued to intrigue.
At the follow-up, Matt glanced over his shoulder at the settling dusk.
"If you can adjust to the sounds of life amid the silence of man out here, yes. I find it peaceful, myself. Think of the drug operations you could have..
Does that mean that I might be getting a neighbor?"
"Neighbors. Airy went bloody gaga over the flier advertisin' houses. She wants us t'move in together really badly. I said sure, let's get a place."
It had taken some persuasion, some soothing of Cass's anxieties. Talking about it now, he found he'd relaxed into the idea, even if there were things he hadn't thought of yet -- like the quiet.
"I did take some convincin'. But that girl could get me to sell me own arms, if she had a mind for it."
The pluralization made Matthew flash a grin that settled afterwards, keeping his lips tilted in private approval. Airy had told him about some of it, but to hear it directly from Cassidy meant something. Aside from the trust that they were sharing, Matt took it to mean that Cassidy had finally settled on a decision.
"She's charming like that, isn't she," he replied, unable to mask his happiness. Shifting, Matt pushed to his feet only long enough to reposition himself next to Cassidy on the mattress, staying sitting up for now.
"I can't say I'm not glad. The space, the privacy is nice, but having neighbors would be novel. Especially if you two build next to me. Not right next to, mind you, but close enough. Within screaming distance if anything goes terribly wrong, or you two feel like company of your own.."
He liked the idea of them close. While he wasn't a part of their relationship, not seriously, he liked the inclusion that proximity brought, and that was vastly lacking out here. A blessing and a curse.
"I think she intends t'let ya have a standin' invitation to come over anytime. And I see no reason why you shouldn't have it. Our casa is su casa, once we've got it."
He turned his head to look up at Matt -- admire him, really, looking like he'd come out of another time with his suspenders and his undershirt.
The heroin was making his limbs heavy. Cassidy felt it when his arm lifted to reach for Matthew's face, hoping to draw him into a kiss.
He could see it now; Airy bouncing over to demand he treat her door as though it were open all of the time. A pure bit of the naughtiest sunshine, she was. Maybe it was that that made her kind of perfect for Cassidy, but that was just his opinion.
Idle matchmaking he was pleased to see panning out.
The easy tilt of his lips spread at Cassidy's reach and he was pulled down with no effort, automatically parting his lips enough to invite and take a deeper kiss. It would only take a second before he was throwing a leg over Cassidy's hips and smoothly repositioning himself on top.
After a few long moments of indulgence, Matt tilted his head up enough to break the kiss and allow him to run a few haphazard kisses across the rough stubble of his jaw, making his way to Cass's neck. There was no need to ask permission anymore, no need to ensure that it wouldn't be used against him, no need to worry about the backlash of an affection.
His fangs slipped out and almost lovingly sunk into Cassidy's jugular vein. Matt growled in a deep, throaty appreciation for the itch that was being scratched.
This was much better than getting maudlin about the past. Cassidy put a little bit of his own teeth into the kiss before Matthew started moving down. His fingers bent and raked their way down Matt's chest, over the lines of his suspenders. By the time the fangs hit, his hands were in place to cup around Matt's ass and press their hips together in a slow grind.
He answered the growl with a choked-off groan — kind of a challenge making any sort of noise when there were teeth at your throat — and continued to make soft, short murmuring sounds as the ripples of euphoria from Matt's bite started to pulse through his hardened prick. If Matt was feeling hungry, it'd be easy to make Cassidy come right here.
Matt was hungry, but he was hungry for a lot of things and Cassidy had said he was going to stay the night - why be greedy and ruin the possibility of a better end. His hips rolled in Cassidy's hands, teasing him as he withdrew his teeth, swiping the wound closed quickly so they didn't stain the mattress but he didn't expect it to be the last sample he took from the lanky man.
His lips found their way up to Cassidy's ear, breath hot over his lobe as Matt spoke. "You're not gonna get off that easy tonight, mon ami.." The sentiment was followed with a nip at his earlobe before Matt started kissing down his neck again.
Dry, but not disappointed or even surprised. Cassidy relaxed his spine and let his limbs bend and curl — one knee going upward to help Matthew settle solidly between his legs, arms draping across his back. He let his neck go loose when Matt’s lips were back on it, his throat bobbing involuntarily against the kiss.
"Better then denied gratification, isn't it?" With Cassidy's shifting, Matt shifted himself, settling between Cassidy's legs with a subtle roll of his hips. "Just because it's easy, doesn't make it the most fun. Highs are meant to be played with, no?"
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The Poor. No matter what era, the poor always had it the worst. Matthew had avoided Irland for.. unflattering reasons, but people stacked on top of people was not unique to the Emerald Isle.
"So true country is new to you... How long were you there?" He knew that Cass caught a ship, probably landed in New York and restarted his vampiric life there, but it was all guess work.
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"I lived in tenements the whole time I was there. Was with me mum and dad up until the age of eighteen — then I moved in with me brother and his mates. Who it so happened were the Republican Brotherhood. They'd go out to the wetlands for trainin'. I tagged along, a coupla times."
It'd been quiet out there. He'd found it a bit unsettling then, too. Cassidy reached for the paper bag again to start laying out its contents.
"It wasn't another five years after that I was boardin' a ship across the Atlantic. Away from a dyin' country, to a place where anyone was supposed t'be able to make somethin' of himself."
He knew that much to be a myth, by now, but he didn't sound bitter. More nostalgic, for a time when he was still capable of believing in something as pure as that.
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"The Americas have had a hard go of things, the child nation that it is.." But they were still people, just as cruel, just as greedy. "I've lived the last couple of decades there, but it's only out of necessity. The old world is better now..
Have you ever gone back?"
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"Thought about it a few times. But you know what it's like when you've got all the time in the world."
Things got put off. Distractions got welcomed without a second thought. Excuses were so easily made.
"What about you? I don't hear ya goin' on about the fields of France all the time."
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Nodding his understanding, Matt left the door to amble within reach and lower himself smoothly to a cross-legged position on the floor in front of Cassidy. It wasn't his way of living, but he understood.
"France holds some.. less than pleasant memories. I've avoided its countryside for a century, moving through cities instead. Places that have room to hide me, to entertain me. Once I became a man, once I died.. The place where I lived was.. not to be sullied by my newly pained view." And he rarely ever talked about himself when he was alive, which made it all the more easier. "I've seen more of the rest of Europe's countryside then my own, but to be fair, she's a turbulent nation that was very dangerous to move through for many many years."
It was a weak excuse, he knew, but one he clung to.
"I shudder to think how the first Chateau De Vigny has survived the ages... Or if its even still standing.." It was. "My sister haunts me even now, I blame her, by and large.."
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"Mm. Families, eh?" Cassidy couldn't a hundred percent relate — his family life had been fine, all things considered — but he could empathize, and keep listening if Matt had more to say on the topic.
His fingers teased open the bag of heroin.
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"It would have been better if she'd died when she was meant to. Instead, she took ten years of my human life and several decades of my afterlife before she was finally put into the ground.. Be glad your family didn't follow you into the Americas.. Or fallen into the same hole that earned you fangs...
But I suppose those are stories for other times, hmm?" No need to bring down a night any further with such pathetic tellings and tales of what he used to be.
"You were still human when you hit America's shores though, yes?"
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He leaned forward the hold the spoon full of powder over the flame.
"Hell, at the time, I hadn't yet realized I'd stopped agin'. That first decade, I was still workin' it all out."
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"I left France for similar reasons. Reasons our friend Grataire are all too aware of. Sometimes its just best to leave. I must admit, I hate that you were left to your own devices in fledgling years.. How'd you manage to not massacre people?"
He asks because it was Matthew's largest problem. Too wrapped up in fury and pain, Matt was chaos on wheels and had caused quite a few problems. He was lucky to have survived, to be honest.
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"Tremendous quantities of alcohol, mate. At least when I was three sheets to the wind, I wouldn't be able t'land all me punches. Lucky I didn't inherit me dad's tendency t'get sullen after a few pints."
He glanced up from the melting powder to Matt's face. "Are you gonna wanna take this through your blood, or mine?"
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"Yours," he replied, eyes still locked down on the flame. "It never works as well when I inject it myself and I'd hate to waste goods."
He glanced up briefly and realized he felt a bit awkward. To mitigate that, he leaned back, propping his weight on his wrists and ignoring the fact that he was sitting like a 22 year old collage student with no class to speak of.
"I ended up getting sent off to Germany. A mountain of opium wasn't enough to settle or sate my needs. I'm damned near conservative now, if you can believe that."
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Almost ready. He rotated the spoon handle toward Matt, prompting him to hold it for a bit while Cassidy tied the rubber cord around his bicep.
“Course, the more I built up a tolerance, the better I got at fightin’ under the influence. These days, I can take out five wankers on four lines of coke and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.” He tore the plastic packaging open with his teeth, then brought out the needle and positioned it over the pool of heroin.
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He'd laugh at Cassidy's visions if he knew them, if only because they were so vastly wrong. Yes, he had always lived in opulence, but what they had in wealth, they lacked in love and compassion, and it made for a harder life. A harder man.
The spoon was taken carefully and held still. "That's impressive. I meant to ask you how you got into something as nasty as tranquilizers the other night. I've seen and heard some extreme ends to getting properly fucked up, but that's new, even to me."
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"There is nothin' wrong with a bit of ketamine, Matthew," he said, his tone mildly scolding. "Christ, especially once you're comparin’ tranqs to some of the other street drugs. Krokodil — ever heard of that one? Fuckin' nasty shite. I'd rather drink engine coolant."
So... okay, maybe everybody had their line. He just happened to figure Matt's was wrong.
"Though of course, given the option —" Cassidy pressed on the plunger, squeezed out the bubbles. The syringe was prepped. "— heroin's a bloody treat."
He offered Matthew the syringe, then leaned in and held out his arm.
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The idea of drinking engine coolant drew a face as he carefully set the hot spoon down and took the syringe instead.
"I'd regurgitate some 'Your body is a temple' bullshit, but I won't. Instead, I'll put out a friendly concern for the overall health and state of your veins. You keep tattoos, so that tells me you don't heal like I do." Taking Cassidy's arm into his free hand, Matt shifted, unfurling one leg to sit with knee drawn up as he places the needle. "So how much you do heal would be a question to ask, if you were interested."
If he wasn't trying to murder himself, however slowly.
"Tiny pinch," he muttered before sliding the needle under Cassidy's skin and into the vein, slowly depressing the plunger until the syringe was empty. The needle was withdrawn and set aside as his other hand slid up to untie the bit around Cass's bicep.
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“Mate, I haven’t the first clue how any of it really works.” When he’d found focus again, he looked for Matthew’s eyes. “I’ve lost limbs and had me skin burnt off, and the tattoos grow back. So how’s that for healin’?”
He could have said something about how he had noticed himself aging, very gradually. He knew he didn’t have the face of a 19-year old anymore.
He felt like mentioning that would bring the mood down further. He’d sit with it on his own time, maybe. Maybe he wouldn’t.
Cassidy leaned back until he was lying down over his jacket. “D’you think I could do all right, out here?”
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"Impressive and confusing," he said, understanding that with that, the question itself became pointless. Cassidy's breed of vampire continued to intrigue.
At the follow-up, Matt glanced over his shoulder at the settling dusk.
"If you can adjust to the sounds of life amid the silence of man out here, yes. I find it peaceful, myself. Think of the drug operations you could have..
Does that mean that I might be getting a neighbor?"
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It had taken some persuasion, some soothing of Cass's anxieties. Talking about it now, he found he'd relaxed into the idea, even if there were things he hadn't thought of yet -- like the quiet.
"I did take some convincin'. But that girl could get me to sell me own arms, if she had a mind for it."
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"She's charming like that, isn't she," he replied, unable to mask his happiness. Shifting, Matt pushed to his feet only long enough to reposition himself next to Cassidy on the mattress, staying sitting up for now.
"I can't say I'm not glad. The space, the privacy is nice, but having neighbors would be novel. Especially if you two build next to me. Not right next to, mind you, but close enough. Within screaming distance if anything goes terribly wrong, or you two feel like company of your own.."
He liked the idea of them close. While he wasn't a part of their relationship, not seriously, he liked the inclusion that proximity brought, and that was vastly lacking out here. A blessing and a curse.
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He turned his head to look up at Matt -- admire him, really, looking like he'd come out of another time with his suspenders and his undershirt.
The heroin was making his limbs heavy. Cassidy felt it when his arm lifted to reach for Matthew's face, hoping to draw him into a kiss.
"Come down here..."
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Idle matchmaking he was pleased to see panning out.
The easy tilt of his lips spread at Cassidy's reach and he was pulled down with no effort, automatically parting his lips enough to invite and take a deeper kiss. It would only take a second before he was throwing a leg over Cassidy's hips and smoothly repositioning himself on top.
After a few long moments of indulgence, Matt tilted his head up enough to break the kiss and allow him to run a few haphazard kisses across the rough stubble of his jaw, making his way to Cass's neck. There was no need to ask permission anymore, no need to ensure that it wouldn't be used against him, no need to worry about the backlash of an affection.
His fangs slipped out and almost lovingly sunk into Cassidy's jugular vein. Matt growled in a deep, throaty appreciation for the itch that was being scratched.
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He answered the growl with a choked-off groan — kind of a challenge making any sort of noise when there were teeth at your throat — and continued to make soft, short murmuring sounds as the ripples of euphoria from Matt's bite started to pulse through his hardened prick. If Matt was feeling hungry, it'd be easy to make Cassidy come right here.
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His lips found their way up to Cassidy's ear, breath hot over his lobe as Matt spoke. "You're not gonna get off that easy tonight, mon ami.." The sentiment was followed with a nip at his earlobe before Matt started kissing down his neck again.
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Dry, but not disappointed or even surprised. Cassidy relaxed his spine and let his limbs bend and curl — one knee going upward to help Matthew settle solidly between his legs, arms draping across his back. He let his neck go loose when Matt’s lips were back on it, his throat bobbing involuntarily against the kiss.
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*sleepy sort of /murmur/, omg autocorrect
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