Carley
VT:L Adventure Guide
Posts: 146
writes for: Alexander "Alex" Kearny (amoribundusher)
writes for: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours)
writes for: Hyacinth "Cinthie" Griswold (kerosenebridges)
writes for: Chelsea "Mackie" McIntyre (ficklefauna)
writes for: Miriam "Mira" Roth (ignafatua)
writes for: Ryan Malone (quicksilverwit)
|
Post by Carley on Sept 17, 2015 12:16:26 GMT -8
"You have visitors, Tucker. In your quad." The cambion peered at whoever the hell was working Turner Hall's information desk this particular afternoon. They were interchangeable to him, a parade of breathless fresher girls who made squeaky noises and turned pink when he picked up his mail every other day. Fingers stilled in the middle of rifling through the envelopes in his other hand, somewhere between his mobile bill and a reminder about a dental checkup. "Visitors?" he echoed. The people who came to see him in his quad were usually...well, it was Beth, nine times out of ten, and she didn't exactly need to ask Fresher Desk Girl #267 where he lived. His quadmates let her in on sight. Alternately, he supposed it could have been Freya, but she knew he was in class up until about ten minutes ago. He'd texted her right before he went into it. "Yes," the girl said, her digits nervously winding around one another. "Your parents." Tucker was pretty sure he did a good job of swallowing his surprise, other than the fact that his eyes were the size of saucers for a moment. "Thank you, um..." Blues dropped to the little pin that she wore on her white Shepherd University polo. "Jessica. Thank you. I'll go see what they want, then." What in the world could they be doing here? Oh, his mother wasn't an uncommon sight. She worked maybe twenty minutes away, and didn't let the fact that he'd left the nest stop her from doting on her only child. But his father? Maybe his mother had a new boyfriend or something. That might be nice, he supposed. His mum needed something like that in her life. Tucker stepped inside 1-C, and the second he did, he knew. Eyes lit on the pair sitting on the couch. One was familiar. His mother, Charlotte, blonde and blue-eyed and as delicately pixie-like as her hairstyle, dressed in lavender scrubs, was always a sight for sore eyes. The other...oh, he knew, he knew. Dark hair, dark eyes. His age was impossible to guess. He could have been thirty, he could have been fifty. Tucker could feel the energy rippling off of him, calling out to his own blood. He smelled like smoke. He was dressed impeccably, in a black suit. Clemens was sprawled across his lap, and his mother was sitting close, hip to hip. The way Tucker sat with Beth. "Tucker." The man's voice came before his mother's could, and he swallowed hard. Something seemed to appear in the man's hand, out of nowhere. He knew it. A cinnamon candy, individually wrapped. "Come here." And Tucker did, because his feet decided they didn't have a choice in the matter. Somewhere along the way, he set the mail on the coffee table so hands were free to accept the offered sweet. "You always did like those." "Don't patronize him," his mother murmured, but her voice was soft in a way that Tucker had never heard before. "He's an adult now, we had this conversation." "Yes, Charlie, I'm quite aware. Turn around, boy. Let me look at you." And Tucker turned in place, slowly, his hand gripping the candy like a talisman that he hoped would ward off this awkward moment. "You turned out well. Not as...depraved as your sister." His tone left it unclear as to whether or not that was a good thing. "What do you want?" Tucker finally found his voice. "Mum, what's he even doin' here?" If his estimation was right, he hadn't seen his father in some eighteen or nineteen years. His mother had raised him. He hadn't even known that he'd been in touch with Freya's mother, Ginger, until last night. "Is this about Freya? Sendin' her here so I can look after her like she's a disobedient child? I'm ten days older, I ain't her bloody babysitter." "No, Tucker. It's about you. Sit." His father gestured to the remaining cushion on the couch, and Tucker sat, trying hard not to look or feel like a petulant teenager. "Let me tell him," his mother insisted, her near-Cockney drawl a perfect mirror of her son's. "I told you, he wasn't gonna take this well." "I'm right here," Tucker ground out through a clenched jaw. "I'm literally right here. Don't talk about me like I ain't." His mother reached over to place a hand on Tucker's knee. "Your father is gonna start workin' with you on harnessin' your abilities, Tuck. You're a man now, not a boy, and I can't help you anymore. I've done what I can, but there's somethin' in you that I can't touch. You and your sister. He'll be keepin' an eye on you both." His patience was legendary. Tucker could sit through just about anything and keep a cool head. But this was where he drew the line, and he leaped to his feet like he was spring-loaded. Clemens, normally so quick to side with him on anything under the sun, didn't even budge from his father's lap. "Was anyone plannin' on fuckin' askin' me about this first?" he snapped. And then he rounded on his father. "Harnessin' my abilities?! Where the fuck were you when I was strugglin' to stay faithful to a boy I loved, but my cock had other plans? Where the fuck were you when I got the shit beaten out of me 'cause I seduced some rugby player's girlfriend? I was in the hospital! The hospital! I had a concussion and two broken ribs, and you couldn't even send me a get-well card?" His mother opened her mouth to speak, then stopped. His father simply watched, his gaze simultaneously calculated-cold and liquid-fire-hot. Tucker wasn't through. The words kept coming and it was too late to try to fill the crack in the dam that had been holding them within for years. "You don't get to bail on me for my entire life and then come back and play house with me!" he snarled, and he was aware that he was going too far. Pinpricks danced across his scapulae. "I may be your son, but you sure as shit ain't my father!" "Tucker. Please." His mother's voice was soft. "I know this ain't easy..." The bat-like, leathery wings tore through flesh and cloth. His shirt was ruined, and blood dripped down his back. "Get him out." He barely recognized his own voice. "Get him out!" His quadmates were an afterthought. He was pretty sure he heard somebody open and then shut their door. Clemens finally jumped from the man's lap and parked himself in front of Tucker's feet, though he seemed awfully placid considering the cambion was having an uncharacteristic meltdown. A wing knocked something off a shelf. He was ungainly. He had no control, no finesse. His father was smiling as he escorted a particularly upset-looking Charlie North to the door. "You'll get over it, boy. Now put your wings away before you hurt somebody." Tucker snarled with a mouth full of knives, and they were gone. Shaking, Tucker forced himself to sit on the floor. The mail he had picked up earlier had gone flying, and it lay scattered across the floor. All the mundane elements of his life, all the parts that he clung to because they made him real and good and not some sort of monster, represented there in a cascade of stamped envelopes. Clemens headbutted his side as he pulled his knees up to his chest and took deep, steady breaths to fight down the beast that had risen up to fight. He'd have to call his mother later. Apologize. Call Freya. Fill her in. Call Soren. Maybe Cousin Meathead had some answers. Call Beth. See if she could love away some of the hurt. "Siri, call Bethy."
|
|
Emily
VT:L Storyteller
Posts: 173
writes for: Beth Lyons (howshequakes)
writes for: Hannah Fein (smiledsobright)
writes for: William "Will" Byrne (anyothertale)
writes for: Rose Sterling (myoncepromise)
writes for: Molly Star (flashofthroat)
|
Post by Emily on Sept 21, 2015 19:52:34 GMT -8
CAST: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours@aol.com), Beth Lyons (lyonsoffire@aol.com) SUMMARY: Tucker seeks comfort in Beth after an unannounced visit from his biological father, who he hasn't known for most of his life. His emotional coital murmurings make the promise ring he offered the fearful Lyons the previous week look like a consolation prize. Dual conflicts that don't seem to have a thing to do with one another wind up with partial solutions that very much bind them by the end of the night. TW: language, rough consensual sex, NSFW
[Tucker] He needed to see her. He needed to see his Bethy. The emotional wounds were fresh and stinging as much as the ones on his back, the ones where his wings had burst through. They had burst through and they were still there, great leathery things that hung from the tattered remains of his striped long-sleeved shirt. He'd called, of course. He always called before he just dropped by to see Beth, unless he was intending to surprise her. He knocked on the door. Mackie escorted him in with her usual sense of la-la-happy-happy that she always had, not even blinking about the wings on his back or the bloody tatters of his clothes. She smiled and bounced right off to go do whatever the hell it was that she did, and then Tucker was left to his own devices, knocking on the door of his girlfriend's room. "Bethy?" It wasn't a particularly happy sound, his voice. There was something raspy in his voice that wasn't normally there, like something had snagged smooth silk and pulled its threads apart. "Beth, it's me. Sorry I'm not lookin' real...presentable. There's, uh, there's kinda been an incident..." And he opened the door. Not too much, just enough to peek his head in through the crack and offer her a tiny smile. Alright, so the face didn't look any different. Just a little awkward, a little sheepish, and there was some pretty intense exhaustion in those brilliant blues, even though it had been maybe half an hour since his father had departed. It was only once the door opened more and he stepped inside that the changes were obvious. His wings were awkward, they smacked into the door frame, and he winced in pain. "I can't put these bloody things away, Bethy. I'm sorry. I'll try not to break anything valuable, yeah?" The wings, the posture, the defeated way he held his head...now that was evidence that something was not right.
[Beth] She liked it, the way he always called before he came through. It wasn't because she had anything to hide from him or because she needed the extra fifteen minutes to put on her face. It was the thought that counted. The thought that maybe, just maybe, her time and space belonged to her, and that she got to say when it was open to others. It was respectful of him. However, there are some circumstances under which she wouldn't dream of batting an eyelash if he just showed up wherever she was, and the kind of emotional distress she could see in the lines of his forehead as she rounded the corner to finish opening the door is definitely one of them. The witch with the warm, wide eyes almost instantly recoiled, startled by the wings that followed her lover into her room. She'd never seen him like that, before. She knew what he was. Until just then, she'd never given much thought to it. Stories heard through whispering teeth in her childhood pulled goosebumps up her spine. "Tucker?!" Beth gasped, planting a hand atop a nearby dresser to steady herself a few seconds before swallowing hard and reaching out to curl sweatered arms around his neck. "Tell me what's happened."
[Tucker] Beth's space was her space and Beth's life was her life and Tucker was just happy to share it with her. She didn't belong to him. She was her own person, despite some of the wording that he'd used with his half-sister. But that was only because he didn't want Freya coming along and putting the sexy act on. No. Freya did not get a crack at his Bethy. The wings sort of waggled a little bit as though in acknowledgement of his girlfriend's wandering eyes, but Tucker's own gaze was merely on the witch who came to embrace him. Arms came around her first, around her waist, holding her close to him, and then the wings, oddly enough, followed suit. They folded around Beth and encircled her in a warm, smoke-and-leather smelling darkness, but it was Beth's scent that he was more interested in, his head dipping to bury his nose in her hair. There was a long moment during which he said nothing, just stood there and tried to digest everything. But she had to ask, and he had to tell her. "My dad." That was the best way to start off. "My dad came. Nineteen years, Bethy, and I hadn't seen him. I don't even know his name. Nineteen years and he shows up and tells me he's gonna teach me to...I dunno, harness my powers or somethin'. Like he's just gonna start treatin' me like his boy now that I'm twenty-one...and then I got mad and now I can't seem to get these bloody things to go away..." At least the mouth full of needle-sharp weapon-teeth were gone, and it was replaced with his normal mouth, those familiar lips that were now pressed briefly to Beth's own. "I wanted to see you. I dunno what to do, Bethy."
[Beth] Oh! Oh, well... that was... different! Beth's eyes continued to widen as Tucker's wings closed around her, but the way they warmed the air around her and filled her nose with the way he smelled was a treat. Maybe she would learn to like the wings, you know? A hand slipped up one of the sides of his neck to put the comforting stroke of a thumb against his pulse. She let some of the tension in her leave by way of heavy exhalation that ended with a kiss to a teeshirted collarbone, and our Chatty Cathy said absolutely nothing until after her distraught half-demon felt it time to explain himself. He couldn't see the way her face contorted with the beginnings of other-righteous anger when he was through because she'd hidden it in his shoulder. Anger wouldn't help him, would it? Would words help it, either? The linguist couldn't think of any that might off the top of her head, so she just clutched at him some more in helpless silence. The kiss he sought from her mouth was granted. "That's a lot to swallow, love," she offered in what should have been Hannah's speaking voice, but wasn't. "Come lay with me." Beth pulled away, careful to wait for Tucker's wings to part before she did it so that she didn't disturb them and hurt him. "Come lay with me, and we'll talk." They needed to talk. About a lot of things, really. This one came out of nowhere to land right on the top of the list of priorities, though, hadn't it? Her hand never left his and her guide toward the bed they'd spent so many nights laughing and loving and telling secrets in was an impossibly soothing thing.
[Tucker] "I don't wanna play house with a man who left my mum to raise me by myself. Bad enough Freya's here. My half-sister. We were separated when we were teenagers, she went to America, and she got herself expelled from Auburn so here she is. He sent her here. So I could look after her." Freya wasn't a bad person. He quite enjoyed her company. But it was the pretense under which she had been sent to Shepherd that got him riled and agitated. The silence was enough to soothe him, oddly, because Beth was here and that was enough for him. She had a way of soothing the rough edges and making him less agitated. It was why he had come here in the first place. "He didn't come when I got beaten half to death in sixth year," he noted wryly. "I seduced a ruby player's girlfriend and he got me damn good." It hadn't left any visible scars, but that hospital stay hadn't exactly been enjoyable, nor had the occasional stabby headaches he got for a year or so after. "And there was no sign of dad anywhere, but now he shows up blowin' smoke out his ass about teachin' me to...I dunno, to cambion properly or somethin'." His wings opened to allow Beth to slip out of them, and he followed, though carefully. Maybe overly-carefully, considering his wingspan and his ungainly movements with them. Down he settled, after pausing long enough to toe off his sneakers, and he slid himself so he was resting with his head on the pillows and his wings sort of draped over the side of the bed. "I'm sorry, Bethy. I know you've probably got enough on your mind already, yeah? What with the whole...conversations we've been havin'." And not having. The one that hung over their head like a little black kitten-shaped cloud named Lucy Lyons-North. The second she was settled enough, close enough, his arms were around her once again. "And then I show up lookin' like this with my own set of problems. These damn things are problems, if we're gonna be honest. I gotta go shoppin' tomorrow, how am I gonna look walkin' through Tesco with these things?" Tucker please.
[Beth] Speak of the devil. There came Lucy, trotting out of Beth's bathroom like she owned the place. The little black kitten plopped down onto the floor a few feet away from Beth's bed, cocked her head to the right and stared at Tucker with sapphire blue eyes. What's with the long wings, Dad? Oh, great, the cat has a sense of humor. Beth, on the other hand, had crawled over Tucker so that she could be the big spoon. He needed big spooning, she'd decided, so she pressed close behind him, burying her mouth and nose against the back of his neck and wrapping an arm around his torso. She even snuck her hand up the front of his shirt so that she could give his belly a rub. "Play house? He's not on about moving you in with him, is he?" Her response was muffled. "You've got a perfectly good room, here at Turner. Maybe it's not so much playing house as it is finally having someone to ask about things like..." And she drew her chin in the direction of one of his wings. "Hm?" The hand that had been tracing idle shapes around Tucker's belly button lowered to pat at his ass. "I'm sorry that you got your ass beat as a boy, love, but that's what happens when you seduce other peoples' girlfriends." Oh, great, the witch has a sense of humor, too. "What if you took him up on it as a... sort of an internship, and took the familial piece out of it for yourself -- hold on, you've got a sister? There are two of you?" Could he feel the blinking behind him? The brush of soft, dark eyelash against his skin? Once, twice, three times? "Oh, cor save us all," she whispered. "This campus will be a writhing orgy by sun-up." Yes, she was ignoring the elephant in the room; the kitten on the floor and what conflict its name churned in her gut. Yes, she'd completely glossed over Tucker's apology and his inferences. This wasn't the time for any of that. "Look, we'll... we'll lay here a while, and see if we can't get you to soothe some, yeah? Maybe you'd have better control if you weren't so upset? Maybe they'd just sort of go off." Beth had no Earthly idea, honestly. "If we can't figure this out, I'll find myself some wings at the costume shop. We'll go as a couple of those really interesting alternative lifestyle people who think their spirits really belong in animals, maybe be featured on People of Tesco." Oh, Beth. What are you even doing? You're not the funny one.
[Tucker] Oh. There was Lucy, the kitten that was not a child. But that was their child. Sort of. Tucker smiled sort of humorlessly and waggled his digits at her. "C'mere, Lucy. You been a good girl for mum?" She responded by biting his finger harmlessly. "'Course you haven't, I brought her home a bloody pint-sized tyrant, I have." He extracted his digit and smoothed it over the top of that soft, furry head, before leaning himself lazily back against big-spoon Beth. "No, no, he doesn't want me movin' in, and even if he asked I'd tell him no. I don't wanna be that far from my classes, and I don't wanna be that far from you." His wings pressed flat against his back so Beth could get nice and close, and you know? The wings did feel kinda nice, like stroking a soft, worn leather couch, but warm. And they smelled like him. They smelled more like him than he did, somehow. "Yeah, I uh...half-sister. Same dad, different mums. Conceived on the same night, born ten days apart. I'm older." Beth, as a twin, would surely understand that little badge of pride, right? And maybe that was a little bit of insight as to why Tucker had been so quick to comfort her when she lost Doc. Being separated from Freya wasn't the same, considering she was alive, but there was definitely a little wedge in his heart the day they shipped her off to Georgia to live with her aunt. It had to be like that but ten times worse. At least her teasing brought a laugh out of him, and he slid his hand over hers, sliding it up his torso under his shirt so that it was placed over his heart. "We ain't goin' as otherkin or whatever they're called, Bethy. I ain't gonna go 'round tellin' people I'm batkin and they gotta respect that." But his laughter fell a moment later, became a sad sort of sigh, and he turned about to face her. He wanted to look at her. "I guess I'll take him up on it. But I don't want him thinkin' I'm gonna go stickin' my dick where it don't belong for the sake of bein' more like him. I've already found where it belongs, and it ain't strayin'. 'Cept when it's allowed. See, Bethy, I think I know a few things that he doesn't, on account of my bein' half-human. Like I know that this goes here..." He pressed his lips to hers, lightly. "And I know that this goes here." Tucker slid his hand down her side, just for the sake of touching her. "And I don't think I gotta tell you where other parts of me go. Unless you'd like a refresher course." Wink.
[Beth] "Bloody pint-sized tyrant is the understatement of the year," she muttered into a soft laugh. "She's done something awful to that little crocheted outfit you like. Might as well be a fraying shammy, now, I'm afraid." Beth would get used to the wings, really. They were kind of nice. They were just... unexpected. Sort of like falling for someone who didn't speak proper English and making time for the kitten he gave you the night he frightened you right out of your writer's brain with a little sparkle of green. It was still on her left hand, by the way, that little sparkle of green. "Good, good, then. I'll not have some strange demon taking off with you." Beth loved the way that Tucker smelled. She always had. Leather and woodsy smoke, like being in the thick of a dance around a festival bonfire. Like everything good and sweet and raw and honest at the same time. Her hand followed his, back up over his belly, his ribcage, pleased with its final destination over his heart. She laid it sort of concave against his chest, as though his heart might protrude from it, somehow, and need extra room before it fell into her palm. "I'd love you even if you were batkin, you know," she confessed quietly. "Even if I had to become batkin to be with you. I'd grow you the prettiest set of wings you'd ever want me to wear." And when he turned over with more srs bsns, she wriggled a snuggle into him, so close that the bridge of her nose might have crashed into the bridge of his nose if she hadn't tilted her head just so. "This Freya, I get to meet her soon." That was supposed to have come out as a question, but she forgot the upward inflection on the end of it, which made it sound more like a sure thing. Beth wouldn't know anything about that badge of honor -- Doc was older than she was by just minutes. She never got to wear it. It got lorded over her head for twenty-one years. "And this father of yours, too. I'll want to impress upon him the seriousness of our agreement before he gets any ideas about you sticking your dick where it doesn't belong for the sake of being more like anyone. I rather like you being like you." A little tug at Tucker's waistband pulled his hips into hers to emphasize her agreement with his point that other parts went other places while she was returning light kisses and murmuring her appreciation of sliding hands. "Everything'll be all right, love," she exhaled, tipping her forehead forward to meet his. "We'll survive the wings and the sister and the father, we will."
[Tucker] "Oi! I thought you didn't have that outfit anymore! You said some strappin' thing tore it right off you. After I left. Instead of, y'know, spendin' the whole night between your thighs like I should've. I would've left it on, mostly, just sorta nudged the fabric out of the way if I could." Of course Tucker knew that Beth was absolutely full of shit about that night, because he had claimed her V-card. But seriously. That outfit was amazing. It was the one that had made him think of her less as a conquest and more as a...thing that he wanted to hold and touch and smear berry-stained fingers all over. "Oh, you'll meet Freya," he murmured against her mouth. "I've already told her 'bout you. Told her she doesn't get to try wrigglin' her way into your knickers 'cause I'm already there, and that you were the most gorgeous thing on this campus, you pretty creature. As for dad..." He sighed, slightly, but it was pretty hard to be unhappy about anything when Beth was tugging his waistband until their hips collided. "You'll meet him too, I suppose. And you and I can tell him that I'll be happy to learn to control wings and whatever else, but I ain't learnin' to seduce people for fun and profit anymore. I have my fix, and my extra fix every couple months." He knew there was another festival soon. He'd looked it up. He was looking forward to seeing what sort of trouble they'd find themselves in this time, what sort of pretty thing they could have come between them in a rather alarmingly literal sense. But what he also enjoyed was this. Just being here, sort of hovering over Beth now, his nose bumping gently against hers. "I know. I know we will. Y'know you make me feel like I'm gonna be able to take on the entire world, right?" He rolled a bit, until he was propped up over her and peering down, brushing his nose delicately against her own before favoring her with a kiss that was considerably more, uh, incendiary. God, he could take over the world like this, he thought, wriggling himself a little more comfortably between her thighs. He could handle his father. He could handle his instincts. He could handle his wings.
[Beth] What, she should have told him that she'd gone home in tears, that night, instead? Did he really want to know how much it'd killed her to see him with Scarlett? No; she'd done the right thing in doing the wrong thing, she was sure of it. She'd also done the right thing in doing the right thing. "Those aren't the regrets I was worried you'd have," Beth smiled. There was something wistful in the shine of her eye. It could have been either eye; she hadn't closed either as Tucker came close enough to give accidental kisses every time he spoke. "Not to worry, love," and there she went making promises, again. "Your Freya, she won't have me. I've got my eye on a blue-eyed thing with the most perfect little heart-shaped ass a girl could ever hope to see or have. I'm certain you're the prettier sister." When you're a girl. Maybe not so much when you're a boy, but perhaps that was for the best. Pretty boys are so busy being pretty that they never bother to learn how to fuck properly. "Good, then. It's settled." Tucker would have his extra scoop of ice cream, so to speak, in only days. Mabon was just right around the corner, and as usual, the Lyonses had plans to celebrate Deity and Its blessings around a bonfire in the Grove. "We'll take on the entire world together, yeah?" She hadn't forgotten to include an upward inflection, that time, which made it an official question. He still wanted her, didn't he? Even though she was cursed and she was skittish and she hadn't exactly cried tears of joy upon being presented with a promise ring like she imagined most girls might? A flicker of uncertainty pulled at the apples of her cheeks and her gaze followed his movement, hands still coveting, tugging, begging for closeness. Begging for forgiveness for crimes against him that she couldn't guarantee she was done committing, yet. There was kindling in her response to the incendiary; something for those sparks to catch on and burn to cinders. Her head tipped back, forcing her mouth up into his, and she didn't waste his time playing coy. A hand was already pushing down between their bellies to try to make something of all that wriggling, giving Tucker's belt a sharp jerk.
[Tucker] Beth's eagerness to get his belt and his jeans undone were matched only by Tucker's eagerness to get her shirt off her. Fingers flew, tugged, clutched on to fabric. He had to force himself not to tear it off of her. She wasn't the sort of girl who would appreciate a perfectly nice sweater being ruined, was she? It would have been so satisfying, but in the end, just taking it off her like a nice boy had the same result. It bared skin that he was free to kiss. Down her throat, hot and open-mouthed things that were akin to him trying to swallow her whole, like he'd never get enough of her no matter how close they were, until he was inside her. Teeth grazed flesh. Never to hurt, no. Not to hurt. Bethy was not a thing that liked to hurt much. Fingers never stilled, only shifted, hands behind her back to pop open the closure of her bra with the sort of deftness that a guy like Tucker only could have gained from copious personal experience. The bra was snatched with a single finger hooking it between her breasts, and he tugged it free of her body and threw it to parts unknown because he didn't give a rat's ass about her clothes, only what was under them. Hips rocked into her touch. "Shit, Bethy. You're gonna be the death of me." He purred it against her breast, all scruff and heat, and then he was slipping down further, catching her nipple between his teeth and giving it the slightest of tugs. She stroked, and he moved, all but fucking her hand in his eagerness, until he remembered himself. Oh, there were so many other things to do to her. Why stop here? Whatever she was wearing on her lower half, be it jeans or leggings or anything, was tugged down with a roughness that he almost regretted. Almost. And those wings. They closed in all the more, until she was practically in their embrace. The unearthly glow about Tucker's eyes, the one that he always got when they were in this sort of situation, the brilliant blue that was too too bright, all but lit the darkness. "If I hurt you..." He breathed it across her sternum. "I'm sorry. Tell me. I'll stop. But I can't...I can't make promises like this." Not while the demon was out to play. It was always there, of course, it always bubbled under his skin. But it was so rarely allowed to come out like this, in a form made physically manifest. And with that warning, he bit. Teeth sank into skin, between her breasts. Not hard. No. Just enough for the very very faintest flashes of pain to flicker through her. It was more to mark than to hurt.
[Beth] There was something just a little bit strange in her soft laughter; something heady and curious and delighted all at the same time. Maybe it was even a little eerie, but it didn't result in a red light. Far from it. All signs, from the way her golden hair mashed itselt in frantic waves against the dark backdrop of Tucker's wings to the way her back arched and pulled a taut belly flat so that his mouth didn't have to work too hard to find any little bit of breast or sternum it wanted... all signs pointed toward go. "I didn't ask you to make any promises," was her mouthy reply, and had quite the double meaning all recent events considered, as teeth sunk into her and...! Oh. Oh. A breathy murmur, this one unintelligible, preceded the dig of sensible fingernails into masculine shoulder -- that beautiful thing, delicious contours strong everywhere she wanted it to be and gentle where she didn't -- to attempt more than non-verbal communication. It failed spectacularly, but the point of her effort was to consent to marking. He'd moved too far down her body, by that point, for her to have held on to that prize. Something of a disappointment, because she did love the way sliding a touch in toward that maddening little spot just inches below the half-demon's belly button filled up her hand, but what was this new adventure?
[Tucker] Mouthy. He loved it when Beth was mouthy, he really did. It made him laugh. And he would have been laughing under just about any other circumstances tonight. Probably would have thrown in an 'I see what you did there' type acknowledgement of her double entendre. As it was, he seemed to pick up on it. "I'm makin' them anyway, little witch." Pants? Goodbye. Useless to him right now and useless to her too, and he pulled himself away from her touch just to pull them down and chuck them halfway across the room. They draped over the salt lamp. Oops. As for the direction of this new adventure, its direction was apparently south. He slid down her body effortlessly, wings opening simply because they had to, exposing her to the light. It was when he was at her feet that he paused, on his knees, to look her over. He looked like a work by a very confused sculptor who found the line between art and pornography to be somewhere around Tucker's waist. Tongue slipped out briefly between dry lips. "You're so fucking beautiful." Sure, he told her that before. Probably told her that on the semi-regular, actually. But there was something about the way he said it now. His breath hitched and came out in a ragged sigh of appreciation and need. Tucker admired her like the worst sort of guardian angel, regarding her form, regarding the sucked-and-bitten mark on her chest that declared that she was his. And then he moved. Digits slipped up her left leg, followed by his mouth. It started at the little bump in her inner ankle, then came upwards, until his hand pulled away and rested beside her leg so he could use it to support himself. More of those open mouthed kisses were delivered, and surely Beth could determine where this was headed, right? Right up along her knee, her inner thigh. Knickers? Gone, he all but tore them from her so he could press his mouth between her thighs and savor her like he was starving. There were a lot of ways to say I love you. Sometimes he said it by feeding her when she was working too hard. Sometimes he said it by making her laugh. Sometimes he said it by holding her in his arms when she was sad or hurting and didn't know how to say it but it came out in her eyes all the same. Sometimes he said it with his tongue, sometimes through words, sometimes by running it over sensitive flesh with a sigh of bliss.
[Beth] Did it look like she was kidding? Beth had already had her fun at Tucker's expense, only moments ago, in fact. Of course, that all changed when his pants went flying and became a shade for her new lamp, which didn't need one. A hand clamped over her mouth, which was loathe to spoil the moment with its laughter, but there are some things that you just can't hold back a reaction to. Unexpected laughter and an unexpectedly rough scrape of scruff against soft inner thigh just before being eaten alive are two of them. The blue denim cooled the salt lamp's peachy-pink glow and cast wide swaths of shadow across the room. Her arms bent at the elbow, shoving back against her pillows and down into the mattress under them so that she could elevate herself. Beth cast those dark, expressive eyes southward, down between pretty little breasts, one of which fit just so in her hand while she toyed with it, and the dramatic curve of hips that shouldn't have come standard on such elfin framework. She watched him, so hungry, pupils dilating with a hot stir of affection and impatience. "You should have eaten before you came over," she murmured a smolder, without pulling away or otherwise denying him what he'd gone after of his own volition. If that was what he wanted, it was his for the taking, but there are times for sweet, sexy foreplay and there are times for... not. She'd decided not to be quiet about letting him know that it was time for not. "Get up here and fuck me. Like you mean this." And that toying hand left breast and aching nipple to trail down over the rapidly forming mark he'd left on her.
[Tucker] The colors were perfect. She looked so good in that warm pink light. Then again she'd look good in just about any light, so far as Tucker was concerned. The one thing he refused to do was to make love to her with the lights off, in fact. There was no need for darkness and secrecy, and he liked to look at her. He liked to watch her expression change. He liked to watch her breathe and shift and move, liked to observe the flush that came over her face and breasts. Liked to watch that, that right there, when she toyed with her breast while he pleasured her. Her teasing was met with a growl somewhere between her thighs, agile form shifting only enough for him to raise his head and peer at her over the soft curves and angles of her body, tongue flicking over his lips. "What, you're gonna deny me a chance to taste you? Cruel mistress, you are. But..." Again his wings opened, spread wide with a little less care taken than before. Luckily he didn't knock anything down or break anything. He just slid up her body as though pulled by invisible strings, until he was once again positioned perfectly to enter her. "If you insist, Bethy. I ain't one to deny the woman I love just about anythin'." Yes, Tucker, this was purely an act of altruism, right? Blues regarded her for a long moment, and he seemed almost unsure of himself. But then it passed. No, he knew what he wanted and he was going to have it. He slid into her as fingers slid into her hair, hilted himself within her as he tugged on dark gold to get her to tip her head back. "I always mean it," he promised her. Poised over her, he held in place until the urge to destroy was too strong. His first thrust was hard, maybe a little too hard, but his hand on her head prevented any painful collisions with the headboard. It came with an unapologetic bite to the hollow of her throat.
[Beth] The only time Beth had ever felt shy about her body was the night of Litha, the first time Tucker had ever seen her outside of the semi-regular school day. Something about it didn't feel right, letting him see her like that, or looking at him the way she had, then, bare-chested, blackberry-mouthed and beautiful in the firelight. It was a cruel tease for both of them. A thing she'd re-imagined over and over again in a tub full of hot water and sweet-smelling bubbles with a hand fixed between her legs until she was able to get him there, instead. Nothing like the now, wherein most of the time she could hardly wait to get him undressed the moment she got him behind closed doors... and sometimes the moment before. Or several moments before. If we're really being honest, the door was optional. So was the bed. "Cruel, am I?" The teasing continued, naturally. "Because I want you inside me? You poor de --..." The rest of her sentence was a rough cry, though not exactly a thing of displeasure. Her hands grabbed at his hips, again curling, again digging as though she meant to pull him in further, somehow. The ravaged's throat was made bare for him by the fall of her head, and the warmth of the sole of her foot being drawn up the back of his calf, inner thigh sliding up over his outer until she could wrap a leg over her lover's hip was almost one movement. "Again," she begged. "Again."
[Tucker] All those moments when he laid eyes on Beth Lyons between the solstice and the moment he first kissed her had been something akin to torture. What do you do when you see something you want more than anything, and you're used to taking whatever you want, and something in your heart tells you it's too precious for you to have because you'll just break it anyway? Pretty much exactly what she had done, honestly. A lot of closed-eyed memories while hands did what she couldn't or wouldn't. Until she did, with hands and mouth and practically whatever else he asked for, or didn't even need to ask for. Beth knew. She always knew. Doors, beds, none of it mattered. A covenient tree out of view was suitable, really, though maybe a little scratchy for both parties. This wasn't some frou-frou dainty courtly love affair, and his Bethy wasn't a delicate little flower. He had yet to figure out how such a small thing could wreck him so beautifully. Maybe he never would. The movement of her foot, her leg gracefully wrapped over his hips, was nothing short of blatant encouragement to the point that her words were almost redundant. "Yeah?" His voice came out too raw and too needy, even as his body moved. That slow pull back of his hips was designed to be torment, but the sharp forward movement, filling her again, would hopefully prove a sufficient reward. "I know..." There was a pause here for a repeat of that cycle. Slow, then fast and hot and hard. "...What I want to do to you." Again. "I want to mark you." Again. "So everyone on Wednesday." Again. "Knows that you're mine." Again and again and again. "...'Cause you want to be." He didn't own her. Beth had free will. She chose him, and he was always so, so glad that she had. Even if it took a lot of coaxing. "And I want you to do the same." Again, but that slow pace was starting to torment him as well, and now there was less art, more desperation. "'Cause I'm yours."
[Beth] She'd always been a natural disaster waiting to happen. The shake of the Earth, the violent emergence of mountain top up through its crust, the volcano seething, ready to blow everything around it away; they were all part of her. There was no 'too' about the raw and the need in Tucker's voice for Beth. To hear him beginning to fray at the edges on top of her only fed her frenzy. The little lion roared louder, breaths like dull razors pulling jagged wounds through her that she loved the sting of. "Yeah," it was panted, as was everything after it. The half-incubus took another step closer to the ultimate claim on his ultimate conquest with every heavy crash of hip, and there was one blinding, white-hot second wherein the witch wondered why she'd ever let him go easy on her. Why didn't she feel like she could pull him close enough? He was inside her quite literally, over and over again, and she didn't feel like she could pull him close enough, take him in enough, be full of him long enough. An involuntary buck of the ribcage crushed it under its incoming counterpart: both cages of bone that kept hearts in bodies instead of letting them merge. Tucker wasn't alone in his desperation. "Anything," she whispered. "Anything you want, it's yours. Mark me. I'll wear any ring you give me. I'll give you as many babies as you can stand, I swear I will." Her words were spoken with haste that was afraid if it didn't push them out right that second, it might never break through her defenses and that Tucker might never hear her truth. "Anything you want."
[Tucker] Mark--demons--Hannah--marking--something? The memory flitted through his brain for a hot second and then fizzled into nothing. Something about a conversation he'd had with a redhead in a bar once. There was too much Beth in his world for him to think of anything but her right now, but there wasn't enough of her, either. He could drink her in until he was too drunk to stand and it wouldn't be enough. Those wings, which had almost seemed to propel him forward, folded down around her again, around the both of them, trapping them in shadow and sensation and scent, in their own private little world. Tucker's hips slammed into hers without mercy or regret, his movements quick now, uneven, ragged. And he was just about to lean down to kiss her, to let her taste herself on his tongue, when she spoke. That...there was a slight pause. Blues, alarmingly bright in the darkness, alive with the energy he was drawing in and the desire that threatened to burn him from the inside out, blinked owlishly. Any ring. As many babies as he could stand. She said it when she was vulnerable and open, when she had nothing left to hide behind, when she was stripped of snark and distracting techniques and nifty factoids about handfastings. So it must have been the truth. Tucker grabbed hold of her wrist, gently guided it above her head. Then the other, above her head. Crossed them neatly. Clutched them both in his hand and pinned her as he destroyed and took and claimed and worshipped her all at once. "I just want you. Forever. Til I die. Nothin' will ever feel as amazin' as you wrapped 'round me." Rings and babies, fine, yes, he did want them. He did. And it made his heart hammer, the sheer enormity of what she had just confessed, and he hid his surprise by crushing his mouth to hers, all fire against the warmth of the earth. The bedsprings groaned in irritated protest beneath, at the force the cambion used.
[Beth] There was something oddly comforting about those wings, now. They'd startled her at first, but something about being encased in her cambion was... right. Soft and warm all around her, a stark contrast to the crush of mouths and the groan of bedsprings that suggested she should be sending a white flag up the pole. She couldn't. The Earth under Tucker grabbed at him, leaving white indents in his hips and lower back, hands climbing flesh and muscle until climbing was no longer satisfactory. Climbing became hard digging, fingernails leaving red trails that should have borne her name everywhere they rose into existence. His name became something at once innocent and vulgar on the tip of her tongue once she was free to speak again, but she still wasn't sure where her mouth ended and his began. Just before she began to fall down the proverbial rabbit hole, it happened; an almost animal look in her eye and a clutch that couldn't have even begun to express the metallic ring of the stake being pounded into place in her chest. It was possessive and greedy, two things Beth Lyons almost certainly was not on any regular basis and had certainly never been thus far in her relationship with Tucker, but it was a give and a take, not just a take. An offer and a claim. If only moments like those could last forever. She was rendered silent by caught breath, contracting muscle. Her world went supernova; how she loved it when light exploded.
[Tucker] It was a fight, you know. A fight to see which one of them would give in first. And Tucker's victory was hard won. It was a wonder he even lasted as long as he did, with his little lioness fighting underneath him, tooth and claw. Those nails dug into his back and marked him as her own, and he snarlhissed like something unearthly. The next bite came higher up. His teeth found her throat, right where her pulse throbbed quick and hard, and he dug in, suckling flesh into his mouth to mark and bruise. He took Beth up on her offer; he claimed her as his own, and he followed her right over the edge so quickly he saw stars. Hips crushed against hers one more time and he cried out softly against her throat, claiming her once again, this time by way of those pulses of liquid heat inside her. When his teeth parted and he freed her from his clutches, Tucker was whispering her name like a hymn to everything good and right in this world. An open-mouthed kiss soothed the burgeoning bruise, then caught her chin, then her mouth. Vulnerable, frayed, raw, his body still a live-wire current and aching in a way that only she could ever fix, the words flowed open and fearless, because she'd given him the same. "I want to spend the rest of forever with you," he panted, still catching his breath. "There ain't nobody else for me, Beth. Only you. Only you." The darkness of the wings began to receed. In fact, the wings themselves began to receed. They contracted, compacted, and it was hard to say precisely where they had gone, but they weren't there any longer. There were just two thin lines on his shoulders, where blood oozed for a moment before the wounds began to seal themselves up like sutures on fast-forward. With the counterbalance gone, Tucker wobbled and almost collapsed atop her pretty little pixie frame, catching himself at the last half-second with a hand on the bed. At least there would be no otherkin Tesco outing in the morning, but that wasn't going through his head. "All that stuff you said...rings...babies...it was true, yeah?" The question was there, but it was a question that he already knew the answer to, and that was there in his eyes, in the warm little smile he gave.
[Beth] That strange, soft laughter found its way up out of her thoroughly loved-on throat, again. "Then we agree," Beth offered between breaths that were only then beginning to slow. Digging fingers eased their assault, became idle love transmitted via palmar contact. I love you? Did she really need to say it? Look at her, Tucker. Just look at her. Of course she loves you. She'll love you until the day loving you turns her to ash. Then her eyes went wide with the disappearance of his wings. "Oh!" Her gasp was... kind of accomplished sounding, actually. What? "Look, we've done it!" Well, yes, Beth, you do it all the time, you're both in heat almost constantly. Wait, that's not what you meant, was it? "Your wings have gone." The smile that settled onto her face was smug, no lie. At least it was smug until she braced the wobbling half-demon with careful arms that held him close thereafter. Then it morphed into something sweet and sleepy. She always looked that way, after, but there was something uncommonly serene about her, this time. Uncommonly... naked. "Yeah, love." Her sigh was palpable. "Yeah. It's me and you. It's us. We'll.... we'll figure it out. Tell me we'll figure it out." Quieter and quieter, she got, until she was little more than a whisper wrapped around a moan. Destroyed, and in all the best ways, including some that she didn't know about, yet.
[Tucker] He slid off her with that sort of lazy grace that he always had, though the fact that he had to pull out of her to do so looked like it was causing him a little bit of heartbreak. Still, though, he had his Bethy close to him. Sleepy little thing, she was. Tucker was always revitalized afterwards, always alive and on fire, but he knew that Beth was not like him. She didn't draw energy from the act the way he did. And seeing her like this...you know, maybe drifting off to sleep with her was a better plan. He certainly didn't feel like returning to his quad to face the people who heard him have a fucking meltdown at his father. So why leave? Why leave this bed, with this fierce little thing, this earthquake, this volcano that had silenced for now and was more like a peaceful, pretty little meadow on a sunny afternoon. "Nah, you did it," he commented about the wings, flopping down on his back with a sigh of relief. "C'mere." Not that she had any choice in the matter, because Tucker was gathering her up in his arms, tugging her gently, pulling her so her head was on his chest. "Of course we will. You tell me what you know about this...family issue of yours, and then we can go from there. Research has gotta give us somethin'. I'll do whatever I gotta do. Whether it's spendin' my off days in the library, or...I dunno. Punchin' Cthulu in the the nuts. I'll do it." Punching Cthulu in the nuts?! Maybe he was more tired than he thought. "But let's not worry 'bout that now, Bethy. You're tired. I'm...unusually tired." And in this sleepy, sleepy moment, their hearts and souls and bodies bared, Tucker finally whispered it. "Marry me, Beth Lyons. When you're ready. Marry me." Somewhere outside the bedroom, a feline meowed loudly, a bell jingled, a little blonde shapeshifter cooed over Clemens. Inside the bedroom, Tucker just held on to Beth for dear life and let his eyes get heavy.
|
|
Carley
VT:L Adventure Guide
Posts: 146
writes for: Alexander "Alex" Kearny (amoribundusher)
writes for: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours)
writes for: Hyacinth "Cinthie" Griswold (kerosenebridges)
writes for: Chelsea "Mackie" McIntyre (ficklefauna)
writes for: Miriam "Mira" Roth (ignafatua)
writes for: Ryan Malone (quicksilverwit)
|
Post by Carley on Sept 23, 2015 4:18:42 GMT -8
"Get up." Tucker rolled over and made a few incoherent noises. Clemens was a warm bulk next to his pillow, and he tugged the blankets up over his head, feline included. The cat grunted in his sleep. "Get up, boy." He gradually became aware of the smell of smoke. Was there a fire in the quad? Tucker cracked one eye open, grumbled something, and finally sat up, looking around. No fire. Just somebody else in his room, and it sure as shit wasn't one of his quadmates or his girlfriend. "Good. Now put on some clothes, it's cold out. I'll be on the Green." Had there been somebody in his room? Tucker stared at the spot where he was sure that he saw some kind of huge, hulking shadow. Something with wings. He reached for his phone and blearily stared at the time. Three in the morning. His body moved of its own volition. How had he gotten dressed? Clemens blinked up at him from the bed, fat and stupid and probably hoping this meant that breakfast would be served early. Tucker scratched him behind the ears and headed out. The Green was empty and utterly silent. It was cold at this hour. Not chilly, just outright cold. He could feel it seeping in through his plaid flannel shirt and the brown faux-leather jacket that was becoming a more regular part of his wardrobe. "Fuck this," he muttered, sleepy, and turned back in the direction of Turner Hall. There were still a few more hours before he had to be up for his genetic anthropology class. It was only after a few steps with his head down that he ran right into another warm body. A too-warm body. Hands slipped onto his shoulders and held him there with a touch that was at once feather-light and anchor-heavy. "Where do you think you're going, boy?" Tucker looked up, sharply, into the face of his father. He all but threw his body in the opposite direction. What was supposed to come out as an angry accusation instead came out as an inhuman snarl, wordless. The pinpricks of pain shot down his scapulae again. In preparation, he threw off his coat. That thing was nice. He didn't want to ruin it. His father, his tall, dark, utterly compelling father, only laughed. "Tucker. Stop acting like I'm your worst nightmare. Here. Have a sweet, it'll calm you down." Tucker recognized the cinnamon candy he was being offered. Once again, he took it, automatically. "Are you keeping an eye on Freya?" "Freya ain't my responsibility," he said, gruff and displeased, the candy unwrapped and popped into his mouth. "She's my half-sister, not my kid." His father eyed him. "Very well. And your girl?" When he looked back on this later, Tucker would be surprised how quickly he saw red. "You leave Beth outta this!" How had his father ended up behind him? There he was, pressed up against his back, leaning in as though to whisper insidious secrets. "It's cute, you know. Marry her? Don't be ridiculous, boy. Your kind is not meant to marry. What, you think you're going to have some happy little white picket fence fantasy?" He was in front of Tucker again, a hand on his chest. "Don't be dumb, boy. You know what you're made for. You're a good one, Tucker. This is a body that can sow the seeds of chaos. Just like your sister. Though you might want to be more subtle about it. Try not to get yourself expelled." Tucker reeled back. What happened next eluded him utterly. One moment he had been standing there, and the next was a blur of movement. Of limbs and teeth and leathery wings. He was pretty sure he had lunged first. He was definitely sure he heard himself screaming. "I ain't like you! I ain't like you!" He was pinned down, heavy and hard, the grass cold and damp under his back. The monstrous winged thing above him came in with blinding, preternatural speed. Clawed fingers raked across Tucker's stomach, through shirt and skin. Those same fingers then grabbed a hold of his face, but not with enough pressure to puncture. Just enough to forcibly turn his head to look the man who gave him life right in the eyes. "Try that again and you won't live long enough to see yourself fail. I'm not too good to dispose of my own. What's that thing your mother used to say to you when you were misbehaving? I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it?" Once he was free to do so, Tucker sat up, brushing a hand over his belly and wincing when it came away bloody. His father stood patiently beside him. "Get up." Up to his feet he rose, stumbling when he realized he had to adjust his center of gravity for his own wings. "You break too easily, boy. All it took was a few taunts about your Beth and you responded like a wild animal. Desire is beautiful. Yes, even the desire for one and one alone. But you've let it become a weakness. You need to learn how to mold it into a strength." Tucker was shaking, his arms wrapped around himself to ward against the cold and the fear. "Any time you want to stop playin' head games with me and start doin' whatever it is you came here to do, I'd fuckin' appreciate it. I got class in five hours. I ain't got time to stand 'round on the Green at some unholy hour and shoot the shit with my absentee father." The words were snapped and bitten. His father was right, he realized. He really was a wild animal right now. His father reached out to pat his face. Tucker cringed, but didn't recoil. The touch was too warm, just like his own. "We'll work on flight next time," he said. "Those wings aren't just there for decoration. I'll let you choose the time and place. Call me." "I don't have your number," was all Tucker could think to say. "You do. It's in your mobile." Tucker patted down his jeans, pulled out his phone, and scrolled through his contacts. Sure enough, there was now an entry labeled 'Father.' He didn't remember putting that in there. Without saying a word, he put his phone back in his pocket and swallowed hard. "By the way, boy, I hope you invite me to the wedding. I do love weddings. That outpouring of need between joined lovers is always a treat." Tucker stared. "I thought you said I can't marry 'cause I'm gonna suck at it? 'Cause I'm some sort of beast who's gonna start fuckin' anything that holds still long enough?" "I say a lot of things. It doesn't mean they're true. Veracity isn't my concern. Volatility, on the other hand..." He trailed off. Tucker watched his father's cavalier smile and realized it was the same one he saw in the mirror. "Go back to bed, Tucker. You've got a long day ahead of you." And then it was as though nobody had ever been there in the first place. The only reminders were the cinnamon sweet that Tucker had spat at some point during the scuffle, and the shallow but bloody claw marks in his stomach. It wasn't until half an hour later, when he had cleaned his wounds and undressed again and laid back down with Clemens, wings folded tightly to his back, that he realized he hadn't mentioned marrying Beth to anybody but the woman herself. Not even his mother.
|
|
Carley
VT:L Adventure Guide
Posts: 146
writes for: Alexander "Alex" Kearny (amoribundusher)
writes for: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours)
writes for: Hyacinth "Cinthie" Griswold (kerosenebridges)
writes for: Chelsea "Mackie" McIntyre (ficklefauna)
writes for: Miriam "Mira" Roth (ignafatua)
writes for: Ryan Malone (quicksilverwit)
|
Post by Carley on Sept 29, 2015 1:12:40 GMT -8
"When you invited me over to dinner, I was thinkin' it was 'cause you were worried about my leg, Mum. Not 'cause you were gonna have dear old Daddy over." Tucker's face was impassive, or as impassive as he could make it. Inside, he was fuming. "Bloody entrapment, that's what this is. Entrapment. Thought you were better than that."
Charlie's face darkened as she stood in the backyard with her son. Or rather, she stood, and Tucker sat, his leg propped up on a second lawn chair. It wasn't a severe fracture. He'd gotten away with a walking cast. He was aware that he was lucky.
"I am worried about you, Tuck." Charlie leaned over and brushed Tucker's hair from his face, watching as his expression shifted a little bit towards something slightly less stony. "What were you thinkin'? Your dad's come 'round to teach you for a reason, and you know it's not so he can see you hurt yourself."
"And how many times do I gotta tell you I don't want his help?" Tucker crossed his arms over his chest. "I get it, I get what you are and I get what he is and that's why you'll never see an ounce of fault in that man. He's got a spell on you. I can do it too. Difference between me and him, though? I don't wanna. I won my woman over right."
The minute he said it, he knew he shouldn't have. His mother looked like she'd been slapped. "Aw, c'mon, Mum." Tucker held his hand out to her. "Y'know I don't mean he doesn't love you in some way. I'm just sayin' I'm pretty sure you'll think anythin' he does is just the best thing ever. He left you to raise me by yourself, Mum, doesn't that take a bit of the shine off him?"
Charlie sighed. She gently lifted Tucker's leg and sat herself in the chair across from him, then lowered his leg once again, into her lap. "He wanted you to have a chance, Tuck. A chance to be somethin' other than what he was. He wanted you to choose, when you grew up. You wouldn't have had that if he'd been here."
"Then why's he here now?" It wasn't like Tucker to have a smart mouth. Maybe Beth was rubbing off on him. "What, is twenty one years and nine months some sort of magic number? Whoops, left the cambion out too long, better bring him in 'fore he gets too human?"
"No, but he's seen you. He's seen the way you behave. The way girls look at you. Boys too. I told him about your grades in school. Tuck, you know you could've done so much better, but you know what stopped you."
Tucker rolled his eyes skywards, like he was entreating the gods for some sort of an end to this night. Dinner with his mother was usually such a nice affair. She'd do his favorite, that lemon pepper chicken she made so well, served over rice, and they'd eat and talk and laugh. If the weather was warm, they'd go for a walk together down the bicycle path that they used to walk every night when he was a boy. Then they'd come back for dessert. Tucker brought it. It was his job. He'd brought a box of cupcakes tonight.
This was not what he had signed up for.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "I know. I was too busy fuckin' to learn, I know. I couldn't help it! Oh, don't look at me like that," he added when he saw the crestfallen way Charlie looked at him. "It ain't your fault."
"We don't want you makin' the same mistakes at Shepherd. You're doin' so well. You're on track to graduate in December. And we're both so proud of you. Yes, Tuck, he is too. I swear it. But there are others around who are like you, and with Freya joinin' you...we don't want a repeat of the past. We don't want to have to separate the two of you again."
Tucker bristled. "Mum. We were teenagers. Horny, half-incubus teenagers. Don't act like we've got some kind of secret lust for each other. We're well past that." He immediately hated himself for bristling. He reached for his glass of lemonade on the table beside them, tipped it playfully his mother's way before he took a sip. "Besides, I'll have you know I'm maybe a bit pre-engaged. Promise ring."
"Really?" Charlie beamed. "Beth?"
"Of course." He could feel the way his smile went soft. "She's the one for me, Mum. Only one who's ever gonna let me be what I am without questionin' or judgin'. Think I knew it the day I met her. Couldn't get her name off my tongue. Beth Lyons."
There was a silence then. Tucker blinked. His mother looked pensive. "Somethin' wrong?" he asked.
"No," Charlie replied, a little too brusquely for his tastes. She gently nudged his injured leg off her lap. "C'mon inside, Tuck. Dinner's just about ready and your father's gonna be here any minute."
It was a strained experience, that meal. His mother didn't serve lemon pepper chicken. Tucker ate his dinner obediently, but every time he looked up at his father, he could feel himself growing angry. His father just smiled. Kind. Patronizing.
Tucker hated him.
It was when he was getting ready to return to his dorm for the night, when he was coming out of the bathroom, that he overheard it. His mother, talking to his father.
"Sebastian, did you know she's a Lyons?" Charlie asked in hushed, hissed tones.
"I most certainly did not," his father replied, his voice on the same level. "My intelligence did not provide me with that information."
"What are we gonna do, then? I'm not gonna break my boy's heart." She pressed her hands to the man's chest. Tucker rolled his eyes.
"You can either break it for him now, or you can let the Lyons curse do it for him." Tucker pressed himself around the corner, flat, to the wall, listening. "He'll father a child, Charlie. My intelligence told me that once. He wants children with the girl. You know what that means, don't you?" Tucker's mother was crying. "Hush, bluebird. Hush. He'll hear you."
"Grandmum always said..."
"Mama Lucas said a lot of things."
It was only when Tucker cleared his throat and made his presence known that they stopped speaking. "Ah! Boy, come here." Tucker's father made a grandiose wave, and his mother straightened herself and gave a fake smile that a toddler would see through without a second glance. "Promise me you'll call before you attempt flight again, please. That cast is not particularly flattering."
But Tucker's mind was already somewhere else. The Lyons curse. Intelligence. Mama Lucas said a lot of things.
Did you know she's a Lyons?
Why did that even matter?
|
|
Carley
VT:L Adventure Guide
Posts: 146
writes for: Alexander "Alex" Kearny (amoribundusher)
writes for: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours)
writes for: Hyacinth "Cinthie" Griswold (kerosenebridges)
writes for: Chelsea "Mackie" McIntyre (ficklefauna)
writes for: Miriam "Mira" Roth (ignafatua)
writes for: Ryan Malone (quicksilverwit)
|
Post by Carley on Oct 3, 2015 2:00:04 GMT -8
CAST: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours@aol.com), Freya Black (darkestiove@aol.com), Beth Lyons (lyonsoffire@aol.com), Huckleberry "Huck" Dyer (waittilligo@aol.com), Eithne "Enya" McCrae (hellishburden@aol.com), Zachary Sterling (holyperdition@aol.com), Aaron Murray (siowroiier@aol.com, guest character) SUMMARY: Tucker attempts to pin his half-sister down to talk about a possible link between their family and the Lyonses, but the arrival of Beth and Huck put a crimp in his conversation with Freya--oh, sorry, that's "Veronica." Meanwhile, Enya McCrae and Zach Sterling make one another's acquaintance and talk shop with a little bit of making eyes on the side. When the crowd thins later in the night, Tucker finally gets to talk to Beth about the goings-on, but finds himself still severely lacking in answers. TW: Mild language and sexuality, maybe?
[Tucker] It was kinda hard to do the barista gig with his leg in a walking cast, but Tucker had made it through a shift, mostly by sitting down in a chair behind the cash register. He did feel bad about making Andy work harder, but hey, it wasn't like he had set out to injure himself. With his shift finished now, he hobbled his ass over to one of the couches, mostly because there was an ottoman nearby he could stretch his leg out on. On the arm of the couch he neatly balanced a saucer with a cup of tea, and on his outstretched leg he neatly balanced a second saucer with a piece of apple pie. His phone was out and nearby, just in case he got any additional calls and texts. Say, from Freya. Or Beth. Or his mother. Or...ugh, or his father, because the man had his damn phone number and kept bugging him now. How's the leg, boy? Haven't gotten any more big shot ideas, have you? None of the texts had been returned. He'd read them, he let his father see that they'd been received, but he didn't answer. Besides, the pie was good, and he'd rather not ruin his mood by thinking about his contentious family situation. The cold weather had come in, and he was dressed for it, a gray long-sleeved button-down and jeans. His coat, the brown faux leather one, was slung over the back of the couch behind him. [Freya] Alright then, Joe's, later. Freya had said she'd show, and so she showed. Because Freya Black was always true to her .. no, fuck that. She was rarely true to her word, what the fuck kind of fun was that? The door to the coffee house brought in some of the Autumn air when she slipped inside; the hand she'd pulled from the pocket of her jacket immediately returning to mirror the other one in the set she had. Her attention sought first behind the counter, to see if her brother was there for his job, but on her way passed it since he wasn't there, she spotted the outstretched foot and it's cast propped up there around the couches. "Dumbass," Frey muttered to herself, sliding a grin into place around the word and let her leggy stride eat up the distance from the door to the seating area. "Really did a number on yourself there, didn't you, fly boy?," she drawled out; ruffling talented fingers through the dark of his hair as she moved by him to drop onto the couch in a way that looked like it might disrupt all the things he had balancing, but it was light as a pretty little feather. Besides the fitted bomber styled jacket she wore, Freya was found in a pair of distressed skinnies, the demin torn and tattered here and there and folded at the ankle above clunky heeled booties. A sweater with a deep vee was worn beneath the open coat - that she was now shrugging out of and letting gather behind her. The sweater was black as night, a stunning constrast to the moon pale of her skin. "Give us the pie," generous red lips cooed, and long sooty lashes batted his way. "You know you wanna share. Lookit me. I'm so skinny. Skin and bones. I need pie. Your pie." [Tucker] Ahhh, there was a familiar face. Tucker looked up as Freya came on over to give him a load of good-natured shit. "Aw, this ain't even the worst of it," he replied, laughing. "I mean, the tibia fracture ain't pretty, but check this out." And right there in the middle of Joe's, he lifted his shirt to show off the bruising that was splattered across the left side of his ribs. "Pretty, innit?" The shirt was dropped back down, and he took one more bite of pie before passing his sister the plate. "Your succubus act doesn't work on me, but I'll share my pie, if that's what your're askin'." As soon as she was occupied with the pastry, he put arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "You settlin' in alright? Incite any orgies lately? I mean, I ain't always on campus, I might happen to be out runnin' errands or havin' dinner with Mum when you decide to let all hell break loose." Sorry, Freya, you were literally never going to live that down as far as Tucker was concerned. He decided to just drape himself on her for a while, using her as a chin rest. She was a good height for it. The news of his dinner with his mother and their father could wait a little while. When Andy happened by, Tucker motioned him over. "Hey, this is my sister, Freya. Mind gettin' her a slice of pie? Use my discount, I'll pay for it. After all, she's skin and bones and dyin' of starvation." Yeah right. [Freya] "Put your shirt down, nobody wants to see that," she chided at him; wrinkling up the heavily freckled nose she'd come with since birth and giving his hand a swat in the down direction. "A number on yourself indeed. The hell made you think you could just .. fly? You're a baby with those things." Freya gave him a little squint, and somehow managed to make herself look as innocent as fresh snow. "I don't know what you're talking about. There's no act," but oh my did she light up when he passed over the pie; digging his fork into it and wrapping her lips about the prongs and the nummies for that first bite. He was looking to cuddle, and Freya leaned into his lean frame, making some sort of non-committal noise around the bite she was chewing on while he peppered her with some questions. "No orgies," came a muffled reply. But she paused, giving an avian tilt to the dark of her crown. "At least none that I'm aware of. I can't be held responsible for what happens in my wake, can I?" Who really knew how far the currents of that succubus act really reached, right? What if one really good orgasm brought like the whole of London down? That'd be awesome. The introduction had her giving a little fork wave, and she did manage to look sheepish that she was hogging Tuck's pie. That didn't stop her from taking one more bite before setting it onto the arm of the couch next to his tea. She gave him a closed lipped smile, this Andy. "Oh oh oh! And a tea? Like his? Please?" See. There were manners! She had them! A bit of a turn in his arms, so she could see him better; her hands sliding to rest together between her own knees, while one foot propped it's pretty boot against the ottoman he used. "Alright, spill it." [Tucker] "Bethy wants to see that," he automatically countered, grinning that shit-eating grin that he had. That they both had. It was the kind of smile that you knew only meant good things for you. Good things and a very sore morning after. "There was probably one on Mabon. I dunno. We were a bit..." He waved a hand vaguely and snagged up his tea. "Preoccupied?" Andy, a tall, quiet man, smiled, nodded, and went to go get Freya her pie and her tea. "Look at you," Tucker teased. "You don't even bother askin' what I'm drinkin'. You could hate it." Lies, Tucker pretty much exclusively drank English breakfast, when he wasn't pounding down coffee like they were nearing a shortage. It was Freya's prompting that had him sigh. "Ugh, where do I even fuckin' start?" he moaned, flopping back against the couch and staring up at the shop's familiar ceiling. "So, y'know Dad's been hangin' round. Decided apparenly twenty-one years and nine months is the perfect time for me to start claimin' my birthright or whatever it is. So he's over here tellin' me he's gonna teach me to fly and do whatever else horseshit. Guess I tried to prove that I didn't need him. And we saw how well that went." He gestured to his cast. "And so then, yesterday afternoon, Mum calls. Says she wants to pick me up for dinner. Alright, fine, so I go, and then she drops the bomb on me that dear old daddy is comin' too." Tucker's opinion of their father was clearly not a good one. Probably because the man showed zero interest in him for the vast majority of the cambion's life. The pie and the tea came, and he took a bite of her new slice before passing it to her. "There, now we're even." [Beth] "Sod off," growled the pint-sized blonde backing in through Joe's front door. The force with which she stumbled backward suggested that she'd shoved someone larger than she was. It wasn't altogether impossible, the lion's temper considered. Irritation scrunched up her nose and tugged at her upper lip as she turned toward the counter, only to turn back and slam a horizontal forearm into the crook of her opposite arm's elbow, fists clenched. Laughter ripped through what was left of the crack in the door, which she kicked shut. Andy, who had found his way back behind the counter for a moment, kind of stood there and stared at Beth. She flashed him a brilliant smile, teeth grit, while she stomped a couple of the season's first fallen leaves off of high-heeled Mary Janes. "Not to worry," she cooed, lifting her chin and straightening the hemline of a black pencil skirt that were it a pencil, would be the nubby one in the supplies box that the last kid there gets stuck with. A white button-down shirt billowed where it was tucked into that, just under her ribcage. Andy never believed anyone who said 'not to worry,' so he was likely to keep one blue eye peeled and stuck to her for the rest of the night. "Where's Tucker? Are you hiding him from me, again? Go on and get him, Andy, pleee -- oh, nevermind. Ta!" The bat of dark eyelashes excused her toward where two half-demons were all a-cozied. Of course, she hadn't met Freya, yet, so you can imagine why her hip might have jutted out to one side and her arms might have crossed over her chest when she got there, all raised eyebrows and brown expectation. [Huck] Oi. Huck. Huck. Brother, pay bloody attention ya' fuckin' wank. "Huh?" An earbud was plucked from behind veil of blonde while eyes sifted from the notepad tucked against a jean clad thigh. Heavy-lidded gaze of blues swayed to his brother sporting black leather coat that was pointing across the street at Joes Joe. A passing couple glanced to the blonde-haired Irishman that occupied bench, but darted eyes ahead when they realized he wasn't talking to them. "What?" Get ya' fuckin' 'ead outta' the clouds. Tie your fuckin' shoes, that fuckin' broad from tha' art-show? She's getting coffee. Come on, get movin' now ya' fuckin' twat. Huck watched Tom, the brother who'd haunt him forever run across the street and nose-dive through the front door right about the time some little blonde number seeming to get into a terrirtory contest on her way in. Tom dove through her, maybe she'd feel the chill, and he disappeared into the building. Black charcoal returned to the page to return to his scenic art. It took about twenty seconds before he decided it was better to follow Tom's lead now, otherwise it'd feel dirty later. Tom would sit down at his bedside, when he'd try to sleep, and tell him everything he missed if he didn't. And he wouldn't sleep for hours. Lesser of evils. White shirt was flimsy and open, buttons undone at the top, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Various chains and bits of leather strapped about his neck in random show of random bits of jewelry collected here and there. Edge of brown crucifix lifted to his mouth and brought down to be gnawed upon when he finally did make his way into the joint, backpack over one shoulder, charcoal and notebook tucked in his right arm. Huck! Huck! Oi! Over here. Check this doll out? Fuckin' tits, brother. Fuckin' tits. The good thing about Tom was that if you were looking for something you could find it quickly. The bad thing was that you had to watch him stuff his orange beard into unsuspecting living folk. Like the bit that the blonde girl, all crossed arm got. Eh. He headed that way, slowly, tight lipped. [Freya] "There's lots of things I hate, Tucker darling," she just shrugged a little, settling back to listen to him spin his tale about their only mutual parent. Her lovely face was unreadable while he told her all of it, and she was quiet as she listened. In fact, she was quiet all the way up until the time that Andy brought over the new slice, and the new cup. A mumured thank you to the man, and Freya took the tea from him, while Tucker took the pie, and a bite of it to compensate since that's apparently how she share now. That one earned him the lift of one slender black brow high on her forehead, but she otherwise ignored that even bullshit from her ten days older big brother. The pie was set aside, and she focused on the tea now; settling back into the crook of his warm arm as she took the first sip of it without bothering to doctor it up. What was the point? "Maybe you ought to just give -- " before she might say anything further, they were joined by another. Tiny, blonde, and irritated. That same winged brow came up. Was she a waitress? The black skirt, white shirt combo might be a dead giveaway, but there was no telling. "Hello," Frey simply greeted, casting a mercury glance back to Tucker, and in that, spying the lurching reluctant approach of another. "Oh fuck me running," she breathed out oh so very low through barely moving red matte lips. Ones she then tried to hide, as well as the rest of her face, with her tea cup. [Enya] Body jerked when the cab stopped and jolted her from the seat in confusion. Thirty-six hours without getting a chance of shutting her eyes was catching up on the woman. "Íosa de dhíth orm caife." Muttered under her breath and a few notes were tossed at the driver. Enya started of Joe's if the place wasn't there. Just shimmered in and out of view. No, that was the lack of sleep catching up on her. Near zombie dragging shuffle of shoes against the pavement till halted by the diving apparition. A bat of her lashes in disorientation but that could be figured out later. This moment if she didn't get a cup of double shot espresso in a mug of coffee, people would die...maybe. The urge to scream wasn't lingering on the tip of her tongue, yet. The attachment lingered on the boy that followed. Slender fingers rubbed at her face till the shaddowed gray gaze peeked out from between fingers and she deeply inhaled when her phone went buzzing on her hip. "Nope." Work could wait. Coffee. Must have coffee. The pale honey tresses had once been in a lovely braid but at this point it was barely holding on with strands curling around her fairy like features of sharp angled cheeks and pointed chin. Dragging herself into the building Enya went right to the counter and leaned her hold body against it. "Triple shot espresso in a regular coffee. Double the sugar and bit of cream." That prettily spoken brogue of Ireland left her full mouth. "Please." Sniffing gaze was brooding while she waited on her coffee. [Tucker] What was that racket? Ah, it was his Bethy being Bethy, and giving somebody just what they likely deserved. Her rancor was directed at somebody else, and he couldn't help the snarl that contorted that boyishly sweet face. It wasn't that he didn't think Beth could hold her own, no. In a fair fight, his money would probably be on her. But she was marked and she was his and have you ever seen a cambion beat somebody with a walking cast before? Because you just might get to, tonight. As she came to stand before them, there was no sheepish grin from him, though. No, just a smile as he held his hand out for his girl. "Beth, this is Freya, my half sister. Freya, this is Beth, my girlfriend." Beth's wrist was gently taken and tugged, so he could pull her in for a quick, tea-and-pie flavored kiss to her lips. "Somebody givin' you a rough time out there? Want me to make 'em wish they were never born? Oooh, Freya, you're good at incitin' lust for other people and things, maybe you can make that person have an unbearable urge to hump a light post." Now that girlfriend and sister were both present, he could continue his tale of last night's disastrous dinner. Two others entered, and blues looked over the pair of unfamiliar faces, remembering them for the future. One pale woman who looked frazzled, sounded Irish, and drank enough caffeine to cause cardiac arrest. One blonde boy who was skulking about and looking a bit out of sorts. And then Freya was trying to hide. "What? What, is somethin' wrong? Damn, could you two have picked a time when I wasn't injured to have people givin' you shit? Hard to defend the honor of my love and my blood when I'm hobblin' around like a tool." But he was smiling. Oh, he was smiling, because it was nice to have them there. If his mother were here, that would be the three most important ladies in his life. [Beth] Had she lost a button? A cool breeze, not entirely unlike the one she'd mistaken for an actual cool breeze sliding through her before having abandoned the entryway, seemed to have settled itself between her tits. Beth looked down, puzzled, and because communicating with the spirit world wasn't one of her witchy strong suits, she blinked and adjusted them right there in front of Deity and everyone before fastening up a little further. "Getting chilly, outside, isn't it?" she murmured curiously. "Little early in the year for that sort of nip." Pun intended. Hey, Tucker, Huck's brother just ghost-motorboated your witch. You should do something about it. Oh, wait, nevermind; that's Alex who deals with spectres and kills things. You just leave a trail of wet knickers in your wake wherever you go and break your bones thinking you know how to fucking fly. When she pulled her attention up out of her bra, it was to respond to Freya's noncommittal greeting. "Hello," she cooed some more. Cooing, by the way, is not generally an indicator that Beth is in a good mood. It is generally an indicator that she's pretending to be so that she doesn't accidentally drop a house on someone or something. "Somebody give me a hard time? Why would you think that?" It was asked with so straight a face that not even I would blame Tucker if he couldn't figure out whether or not she was leaning toward sarcasm. Her eyes widened as introductions were made "Ooh, Freya." Well, that explained that, now didn't it? The blue eyes, too. Her head ticked to the side so that she could assess their likeness, even if she didn't comment on it. It was just a habit she'd developed after so many years a twin. 'Oh, you look just like your brother!' She might have taken it as a compliment more often if Doc hadn't been a six foot three, square-jawed moron. (He was neither of the latter two.) "Aren't you a pretty thing? Welcome to London," after which she made herself comfortable on the arm of what ever the incu-half of the -bus siblings was sitting on. Tugged. Kissed. Ooo, tea and pie. Lovely. It seemed to soothe her ruffled feathers a little, at least. As Tucker lamented his current inability to bad-ass, she just pulled her lips back over her teeth and looked away, which gave her a chance to spot Huck. "Tucker," she whispered conspiratorially. "Tucker, is Joe running one of those pay-it-forward programs? Why is that homeless boy meandering the place like he's lost something? Do you suppose it's his marbles?" The blonde at the counter, well... she'd had those nights, too, honey. You just pull up and Andy will start an IV drip for you. [Huck] Huck? What the 'ell mate, get tha' fuk ova' here. What was tha' girls name again? The blonde-haired guy who was a little more than six-feet tall had stuttered in his steps. Throw back from a greener place had caught the attention of the all-too serious Huck. Edge of crucifix was removed from his lips, a few new chips gnawed into the rood. Freya! That's her fookin' name, bro... Over here. I think she's hidin' her face from ya'. Whoa.. watch out there honey. Tom twisted when Beth wandered through him and found her perch on the couch. Huck again started to move across the room. He couldn't even answer his brother to tell him Freya was not at all the correct name, but Veronica. Or at least if that is exactly who it was. He hadn't see the girl that his brother went racing after, but a part of him was interested in seeing the girl again. She seemed nice enough, and they departed a bit hastily last time. He barely got to say hello. Hand rose up to brush aside stray blonde and smudging charcoal on his cheek and nose in the process. Listen, this one's calling you homeless. I been tellin' ya, tha' fookin' threads brotha'. Tha' fookin' threads. We need ta' change this up.. Ya' look like tha' fookin' rat dog Miss Everbree had, all fuckin' mangey. Oi. Fuckin' Freya right here.. Check it. The ghost had climbed along the back of the couch and was peering over the shoulders of both women, as he loomed over the unknown fella. This one gives you any lip jus' fuckin' aim for tha' cast. There's a fuckin' coffee tin ya' can bang off his dome too. Don't be afraid to hit 'em first. He's got that look on 'em. I can tell 'em.Jus' don't stop. Huck turned the volume down on the barking voice of his obnoxious sibling who would ramble, and ramble, ramble. It was conversational jazz. "Hey, Veronica, right? Huh.. Didn't think I'd see you again. Hey, how's it going guys, girl." He tilted a little nod while he realized how much shit he was tugging around. He slowly went about the process of storing away charcoal in a side-pocket of that pack, and moving notebook to the pack. She aint fuckin' Veronica, they jus' called her Freya. She jus' didn't want to give you her real name. Probably because you're a fuckin' homeless dork. [Enya] That IV should be getting started soon ASAP. The mug of jave was set down before. "Bless you." Phone went to buzzing again and she reached for the clip on her hip. Flash of a badge that had been hiding under her coat as the phone was taken off her hip. Sipping the wonderful fuel go-go juice Enya answered the phone. "No, Charlie. I'm done for the next three days. Ya know that." Huff and puffing, she stalked towards a open tale. "No. N-O. The dead can have Nick check 'em. I need sleep or I will be making your life a living hell. Food, sex, and sleep. I have been without." Laughing, one pant legged thigh was thrown over the other. "Now leave me alone to enjoy this cup heavenly cup of coffee." Pulling the phone away from her cheek with Charlie babbling on the other end she hung up on him. Sigh. Smile. Coffee. Happy. So very happy. [Freya] Ahem. Veronica. Because she so wasn't a Betty. Or at least, that's what she'd told him, wasn't it? Wide eyed blues went back to the blonde who had a name now. Ahh, no no. Freya already knew that name. Now it had a face. Delight washed over those blue eyes when they shot back to Beth, and Freya peeled away from Tucker in her excitment of finally meeting her brothers impossible ``one.`` Impossible? Freya didn't believe in such things, not for their kind. Tucker liked to prove her wrong. "I'm so excited to finally meet you. I'd started to belive he'd made you up," the tease rolled so smoothly past her liar's mouth, and once again blues found the male of the three blondes who'd entered Joe's one right after another ( well, four, but not all of them could see the brash boundary crossing ghost ). There he was coming, and with a cool trickle of something that felt like it was coming from beneath the heavy fall of all that dark hair, Freya rolled her shoulders a little as if that might displace the feeling of whatever it might have been. Her lips parted, probably to greet the man who was a far cry from a boy, btw -- but then he called her the name she'd given him once she'd realized her was straight up crazy, and color instantly rose brilliant and ruddy into her cheeks, doing it's very best to showcase the constellations of star-dusted freckles across her face. Lips clamped shut, and the American raised Brit cleared her throat a little. And then again. So didn't like getting caught in her lies. "Ahhh, hi there .. you .. " Cause she hadn't asked his name during his whole personality switcheroo. [Tucker] "What makes me think you might be havin' a rough night is the fact that you came in yellin'. Or have you started doin' that recreationally now?" With Beth seated on the arm of the couch beside him, he curled his arm about her waist and leaned into her a little, freeing Freya up to get all eager over finally meeting the woman herself. Which, of course, he couldn't blame her for. His big, stupid smile demonstrated that. Blues glanced quickly towards the woman at the counter. Food, sex, and sleep? Three things Tucker North's life was made of, if he was doing it right. College kinda put a damper on one of those at best and all three at worst. But at least he was getting regularly laid and eating well enough. An earlier incarnation of Mr. North would have sidled up to her, offered his sympathies. Bought her coffee. Taken her out back for a quickie. At the moment, he was off the market until the end of next month, and even that would be for one night only. With somebody coming on up to talk to him and the ladies--the homeless guy who Beth thought was here to retrieve his missing marbles--he just kinda fixed him with a smile. One that only got bigger when he called Freya by a different name. Lord. He was no stranger to the con game. He wouldn't blow her cover, but he did fix Freya with a look that translated into 'really?' for just a moment. "I don't make up fictional women," he said to Freya. And to the guy? "Hi. I'm Tucker. I'm her brother." And he might have had a cast, but he did have some supernatural abilities on his side. Still, he was a lover, not a fighter. [Zach] The trek to the coffee joint was less perilous than originally thought. Those characteristic eyes of crystalline azue scanned from one pedestrian to another, from vehicle to vehicle, as loosely fitted combat boots made the occasional thud against concrete. Even the mundane could not bring rest to his defensive nature and posture, preferring to live like in a status of constant awareness. Dressed casualy, an uncommon sight for someone born into prestige, Zach pushed through the coffee shop's entrance and quickly set into scanning the scene with machine-like efficiency. It was as though he was targeting a specific individual within the establishment, the coroner's assistant that had alluded his encounter earlier in the day. Turning upon heel he slowly made his way over to where she had found a seat, eyes carefully scanning over each individual in doing so. The barista, or whatever you call it, set to purpose in preparing his traditional French roast. There were no extras needed, Zach being the type of man that preferred everything straight up and strong. After a few seconds of travel he took a seat before the young woman, likely to startle her upon his arrival. He gave no effort in pleasantries, preferring it best to just take a seat as though the two were normal acquaintances. A disarming smile, boyish in its charm, was offered to defuse his sudden appearance. "Enya, I presume?" The words drew from his lips with a soft tone in further attempting to disarm any alarm she likely would experience. "I spoke with Douglas, my mucker at the office, and told me you were heading this way." The smile only broadened, those pearly whites exposing just enough to give a preview. His right hand, free from distraction, struggled around with his jacket pocket before withdrawing a highly ornate business card. He refrained from immediately giving it to her, displaying it for a second to further ease whatever fear or uncertainty she might have. "I'm Zach. I've recently arrived back into town and wanted to make sure we met." The card was swiftly placed upon the table's surface and slid gracefully towards her end. He laughed somewhat, knowing how random everything must have been for her. "We will likely be in touch quite often due to the nature of our work. I didn't mean to startle you or be intrusive." By then the coffee he had ordered in unspoken fashion arrived and entered his calloused hands, another nod of gratitude offered the server. [Beth] "I can't decide whether or not I'm flattered that I might have been made up," Beth mused at Freya Veronica. "Either he's really made me up or he's told you a bunch of sick-sweet lies about me, I think." Nobody would make up such an infuriating woman to call his own. She glanced between the dark-haired girl and the homeless man as he came a-chatting and somehow managed to keep the eyebrow that wanted to spring back up into her forehead on its best behavior, even if she pulled a tooth or two back over the righthand corner of her bottom lip. "Yelling?" back to Tucker, with the turn of her head. "That? Oh, that was nothing. I ran into some of Doc's sportsball brethren and they insisted on seeing me across the street on account of the hour. Solid sort, they are." And then Beth nailed Tucker to the sofa with a staple gun. "Beth," she added for Huck. "I'm nobody's brother." [Huck] Fuck! She forgot ya' bleedin' name! Grab a tit! Huck didn't appear to be the type to pick a fight, probably the light smile and drowsy eyes that swept from Veronica who seemed to be grasping at straws and then to the Tucker. Wank, ya' got shit allova ya' face. Clean yourself off. Again, Tom blinders were left in place, but he did glance down from the man in the cast to peruse his black chalky fingers. He grinded them together when honey-soaked baritone oozed out in Irish born lyrics. "Tucker, Beth, Hey, nice to.. uh.. sorry. Huck. It's.. nice to meet you all." He again let lips remain smiling lightly. You missed ya 'opportunity ta' be remembered forevuh. Mary sweet heavenly father.. Look at what that girl is wearin'. Tom was gone again, drifting away from the couch and moving towards the window in a jog. Huck actually bending his head to follow his brothers movements to see where he was headed now, but then turned eyes back to the three. "Eh... Yeah. Nice meeting you all, just wanted to see if that was.. eh.. You. Veronica. Uh, yeah." Again he smiled some, and then turned about on the heel of cheap sneaker and adjusted backpack on his shoulder. Yeah. That was.. uh... painful. Being social was hard, and there weren't even any ghosts around. Beyond Tom that is, still, he was going to have to work on his outside voice. He was hastily making it for the door again to see what Tom was chasing now. [Enya] Really? She just got off work! WHY? All she wanted was enough coffee wake up and do paper work. Then dreamless sleep for the next day or so. Finger lifted to brush the strands away from her features and shaken out the braid more. Douglas gave her name to the man? Those trying not to zone the fuck out gray hues stared at him but it was easy with the darken circles under her eyes wanting to slide shut and forget everything. "...." There was nothing said even after he was done speaking. Several gulps of coffee swallowed down while the cards was taken from the table and scanned over. Zachary Sterling. Upper crust name and handsome devil sitting across from her. The card was tucked into her jacket pocket. "Working together, eh? What are we going to be doing? Looking at old shit?" Playing off that she didn't do the dirty side work keeping murders covered up for the people, but that was the order of her business. "Not sure that I can help you." Lies, she would be helping him, but he was just getting her at the worst moment ever. The cup of drained not bothered by the burning of the coffee of her throat. Waving a server over for another. "Mr. Sterling, we should talk about this matter in more of a private setting. Prehap's in a day or two, before I go back to work we can meet?" A lid closed and she was leaning towards the table. A yawn covered with her fingers. [Freya] "I think he was more or less giving an attempt to brag," Frey spoke from the corner of her mouth, as if it were some sort of secret to keep away from her brother, just a quirk entering into the generousity of her plump mouth. Well. Thankfully there was one polite sibling on this couch, and Freyonica looked a little bug eyed between her brother, his girl, and the art gallery guy with his sad eyes -- which is what had drawn her his way in the first place, and well, look at that. She'd made it weird. This was a not a girl who made things weird. Congrats, Huck. Huck. "Awesome," she croaked out a little, and bounded up. "Alright, I'm going to go fix that. Beth, again, lovely to have finally met you. Welcome to the family, and all that. Beware our father, he's a bit of an ass grabber." She flashed the witch a smile, then leaned down to brush her lips across Tucker's cheek. "And you. No flying. Not even with you know who." A lean back, still bent, and she gave him a stern point, and an even sterner squint before straightening. "Thanks for the pie, love," the Alu-fiend, always on the run from, or to, something pivoted on a heel and let her succubutt take her out of Joe's with a swing of her fabulous rear to follow after the charcoal stained possibly homeless guy. He didn't look homeless the other night, so he did have that going for him. Right? "Huck!," she called now that they were clear of the coffee house, and she could probably work the act she claimed not to have on him. You know. Again. [Zach] "Keeping things professional and in order." He spoke rather bluntly, knowing that a mutual understanding was clear. He wasn't one to sugar coat things when it came to... business. That scanning gaze drew over her in admiration, those soft features committed to memory as though he had just read an entire novel. She was clearly not in the proper state for conversation, something he knew all too well. His smile faded as his demeanor became far more intense, stalwart, and ultimately business-like in nature. "Rough day, I take it." His cup of coffee rose to slightly parted lips, intaking just a mere sip, before placing the ceramic cup back down. A light chuckle was made before he continued. "You've handled it gorgeously." In suave fashion the same hand as before rose across the table to brush back a few of the golden strands of hair that had escpaed her braid during the day behind her ear. He let out a small laugh before returning to his coffee, another sip taken as the hand was put to new purpose. The warming sensation seemed lost on him, as though is had become more mundane than bringing. The last sip was more of a quick gulp, a daring move for anyone drinking fresh coffee. It was the pain of it that he relished in. "You will be hearing from my office within..." He stopped short of an answer to fully digest her tiredness. "... a few days. You deserve that much given the quality of work you do for the office." The coffee cup, with its ceramic base, impacted the table with an audible clank. He observed her even further in those moments, lids squinting to further take in the more subtle details of her expressions. He was a master at reading people. She was no different, despite having very little knowledge of her. "We should meet sometime during your time off. There are many things we need to discuss." Said things were not open to public conversation, a fact he laid on the table, figuratively, in that moment. [Beth] Fix that? "Fix what?" With Freya's high tail toward Huck, Beth slid off of the sofa's arm and onto the cushion below, wriggling skirted hips in an attempt to get Tucker to scoot over and make room. "Was it something I said?" Sometimes she said things that seemed perfectly sensible to her, but were perhaps a little brisk to everyone else. "Does your sister always chase after homeless men?" Like that. And like the one time she'd assumed another girl a prostitute based soley on the hour, the fact that both her skirt and her thigh-high boots were made of plastic and because she was approaching Tucker. Whoops. "'Ay. How's the leg?" [Tucker] Tucker watched the entire departure scene go down with an air of quiet surprise. Huck had left an interesting first impression on him. He probably cleaned up nice. He had sad eyes. He was a prime target for a creature such as himself--or such as his sister. "Bye, Veronica," he teased. "And I'll make sure I don't take any more flyin' lessons with Voldemort." Since she'd called him you-know-who. With a wink of a brilliant blue, he obediently scooted, just a tad, down the couch to make some room for Beth. "Nah, she ain't chasin' homeless men. She's chasin' prey. She doesn't have the luxury that I do, of knowin' there's somebody who's always got your back and is usually willin' to, ah, sate the appetite." He glanced towards his injured leg and just fucking scowled at it. "Ugh. By the way. I have a story for you. Y'know how I went to dinner at Mum's last night? Well, Dad decided to come 'round too, and things got...interestin'. You're gonna want to hear this, Bethy." He'd meant to ask Freya, too, but introducing his girlfriend and homeless dudes had gotten in the way there. "By the way, I only told her truth. Told her you were the prettiest thing on campus, and that I loved you, and that if she tried to put the moves on you I'd punch in her perfect little nose." Ah, sibling love. [Freya] It is a rather perfect nose, fuck you very much, Tucker North. [Tucker] The Black and North kids had such good genes. Kinda like the Lyonses. RIP Doc. [Beth] "Interesting, hm?" She leaned back, crossing sleeved arms over her chest. One thigh slid over the top of her other, leaving a black shoe dangling off the toe-end of her bouncing foot. "Well, yes, I do want to hear it; you said it was interesting." OFFS, Beth. The hand closest to Tucker flattened into a light push at his upper arm without coming free of its arm pretzel. "Don't you dare hit your sister," she scolded him. Note here that she focused on the part where the brother threatened to hit the sister, not the part where it was entirely possible the sister could work lust demon mojo on her if she wanted to and land her in all manner of compromising positions, literally and figuratively. "Hitting sisters is rude. Now, go on and tell me this thing I want to hear." [Enya] "No sleep for the dead." In thirty plus some hours she had taken on twenty cases of death. One of their people was out of the office with their wife having their first baby. She needed to see how that was going...thoughts went to a stop when he reached out to tuck those strands behind her ear. Enya's inner self was giggling like a school girl but she wasn't going to do that here! "Thank you." Leaning away from the table, she was glancing over to find that two of the four were gone. Leaving behind the shaggy hair boy and well dressed lassy. "Call me in twenty-four hours and we can have that talk." She was pulling out the small wallet and pulled out one of her cards. Pen grabbed from the same pocket. Writing her personal cell and home number. "Have a good night." The card was left behind when she eased from the chair. "I should go before I pass out on the table." The coffee was working to wake her up just enough not to fall over on her way back home. "There is place I know, but we can talk later. Bye." Wiggle of her slender digits and she was hurrying out the door into the night. Golden strands turning paler in the moonlight. A walk home would keep her awake and give her time to go over the deaths she covered the last day; normal or paranormal...and how to keep those stranger death hush hush this time.
[Tucker] When Beth shoved him, he just laughed. "Aw, c'mon now. I won't hit her unless she deserves it. Besides, she's got a right hook that'll floor me if I ain't careful." His joking attitude slipped away, however, and he leaned in to speak to her softly. "I was comin' out of the bathroom after dinner, right, and I overheard 'em talkin'. It was the first time I'd ever said your full name to Mum. I think they know your family. They said somethin' about a curse. The Lyons curse. Bethy...they know somethin'. I just gotta figure out what it is that they know. Not just Dad, Dad I could see knowin' a bunch of shifty shit. But Mum?" He glanced about, surreptitious, as though worried that his father might be eavesdropping right this second. Oh, and don't worry, Enya, you'd see Tucker a lot. He worked here! "She said somethin' else, too, about my great-grandmum. Her grandmother. I never met her, she was long gone 'fore I was born. But she used to...say something? I don't know. They were awful vague. Probably because I wasn't supposed to hear." [Beth] Tucker might as well have hit his sister and his girlfriend, the way Beth's head reared away from his. She was all eyes and O-shaped mouth. Can't you just see the cogs catching behind it? Connections, all over the place, like one of those old slabs of wood with nails in it that you stretch colored rubber bands across to make 'folk art' with in the third grade. Whoa, there, conspiracy theory Tucker. "... Uncle Thomas is well known in the city," she tried to explain away the eeriness. "And maybe it's some other Lyonses, right? Lyons isn't a rare surname, not here in the UK." Verbal denial while her brain was all full of rubber bands, just not the one she needed to make that final connection before she thought enough of a thing to spit it out. "What on Earth would your mother know about any of..." My bloodline's woes. It wasn't a thing you said out loud in public, after all. Not unless you wanted to be burnt at the stake. "Your mother is a pediatrician, for..." Uh, why is this dark-haired guy approaching them on the sofa and trying to shove money at Tucker? He's clearly on break or something. That broke Beth's brain train. She just watched the Sterling trudge away. [Zach] Zach wasted no time in taking possession of the young woman's business card. A laugh was entirely stifled as he admired the card, thinking about how the situation would have been entirely different had he been actually flirting with her. For a moment he looked at the emptiness of his coffee mug before finally deciding on his own exit. The voice of Tucker is what ultimately brought him out of deep contemplation, body moving to leave the stall and finally stand to full fruition. Those loosely fitted combat boots made their trademark thud as he approached the familiar face, hand withdrawing a monetary tip of sorts for his favorite barista. "Tough crowd tonight." He referenced his earlier conversation had the barista extraordinaire been privy to it. A friendly smile was offered as he trudged his way out of the coffee shop and slowly into the awaiting streets and walk home. [Tucker] "I don't know, Bethy. I don't know." Tucker could see the gears engaging behind those too-smart browns, and he tried to follow her train of thought, which wasn't easy without cues. Sometimes it wasn't even easy with cues. "Yeah, I know. She's a doctor. Ain't anythin' like..." Whatever he was going to say, it was cut short by the man he recalled from earlier. Tucker was currently off the clock, but he was post-shift. "Yeah, um...French roast, the Nothin' Fancy, yeah?" Normally it was ordered by his little soft-spoken redheaded buddy. That was why he recalled the man. He had Hannah's order but wasn't Hannah. The money was stared at for a moment. "What? No, I ain't workin' right now, I can't take this, it ain't ri--" And he was gone. That was entirely too much for a barista tip. Tucker was left clutching it. "I'll give it to him when I see him next," he decided aloud. Despite being a cambion of lust, he had considerable pride. He tucked the money in his pocket for safekeeping, and tried to go on with his conversation with Beth. "Look, I know it looks sketchy. Maybe I can go back in my family's history and see if I get anything. Whatever it is, it's passed down from the Lucas side, so Freya might have some information too." [Aaron] Part of Aaron Murray was destined to be a foreigner regardless of what country he was visiting, same flag- different colors, similar patterns. Maybe. He was still jet-lagged and it showed somewhere in the depths of his expression, peering at the sign of this place just prior to the conclusion of entering. Joes Joe. He felt kinda clever cause he got it. Aaron pushed inside with his lean and lazy, roll-easy demeanor, letting the door shut behind him. He was thin enough, his skin that all year sorta tan that looked the color of caramel and most of it was covered in all sorts of ecclectic tattooes, immature ones from his youth that let the casual observer know he had regrets like anyone else. A short mess of black hair, half-lidded blue eyes that seemed to be stuck that way. Wearing a slim fitting white t-shirt and some worn-in blue jeans, he made his way inside and over towards the bar area. Maybe a coffee would help him adjust. [Beth] "It looks real sketchy," the skeptic admitted, though something plucked at rubber bands stretched taut. "Yes, let's have some more information. Lucas, you said?" The blank that washed over her meant that there were no Lucases in her family tree, at least not any that she knew of. Lyonses. Curses. Lucases. And Tucker's parents? What did any of them have to do with any of the others, aside from the obvious. The missing rubber band soured her facial expression and she huddled into the sofa cushion behind her. The little golden jingle bells that were tied to Joe's front door year-round sang their little song. Almost everyone who spent any amount of time there had developed the habit of looking up when they did because odds were that they'd know the person coming through the door. Beth didn't, this time. If the dark-haired guy braving an autumn evening in London without a jacket happened to catch her eye, she'd flash him a distracted smile. If not, she'd just put her eyes right back on Tucker. They were worried eyes, suddenly. What if her little mid-coitus comment, last week, had hyper-focused him on the figuring it out part of their agreement? What if he hadn't heard what he'd thought he'd heard at all? There were too many factors at work, too many rubber bands too tight. Her brow knit, brown eyes underneath closing so that she could pinch at the bridge of her nose. "Is that your father's side or your mother's side, the Lucas?" [Tucker] With the arrival of a stranger--Tucker was off the clock, but Andy was still working and he'd tend to the newcomer--there was also something else that entered. It was a little brush of gray fur around the ankles of the man, and then the fat lump waddled in as though cats were permitted in a coffee shop, which they were not. "Oi! Clemens, what do you think you're doin' in here?" The cat simply trotted up to the couch where Tucker sat with Beth, sat in front of it, blinked, and laid down. He shot Andy a 'what the hell am I supposed to do' kind of look, then turned back to Beth. "Yeah. Mama Lucas is what Mum calls her. It's her side of the family. Hell if I know anythin' about Dad's side. I assume it's just...y'know, full of his...people." Which sounded racist as shit if you didn't know that his father was a demon. "Hey. Bethy." Tucker took her wrists gently in his hands, held them there in his lap so she'd look at him. "Don't let it keep you up at night, yeah? I made you a promise we're gonna figure it out, but it ain't the only promise I made you that night. I promised to take care of you too, remember?" He hadn't. But he was pretty sure that was part and parcel of the other thing that he had said to her. The thing he wanted her to do when she was ready. [Beth] "At least we know Joe's doesn't have rats," she quipped, pursing her lips and making the most awful smoochy sounds at the fat, grey cat who had decided that health codes didn't apply to him and that he could go anywhere he damn well pleased. Oh, and it wasn't that she thought Clemens would chase the rats off -- no, she thought he'd meow piteously and run away from them like a hot water bag full of jello with legs. Surely his comfortable sprawl on the floor in front of them meant that there were no such scary rodents on site. Oop! Wrists snared, and she wasn't given much of a choice in what she'd end up focused on, next. Beth's posture softened. It always did when Tucker got all gross and mushy on her. He was inexplicably romantic for a creature who was genetically predisposed to the opposite. "Right," she relented with a sigh. "Right. Okay. Look, I... what? You didn't promise to take care of me." She reached down to knock on one of the plastic parts of the boot splinting his broken leg. "You're the one who needs taking care of. Bloody fool, letting your pride bust you all up." [Aaron] The brave American braving the London autumn in nothing but a t-shirt was indeed regretting his decision a little now, but some hot coffee might help. He came about a cat's hair away from tripping on that scuttering furball that bum-rushed into the place the moment that Aaron had pushed open the door, awkwardly stumbling forward a couple of steps before smoothing it out into something that seemed oddly intentional, forcing a nice first impression Aaron inner monologue expression, if one existed. His blue eyes settled on the duo over on the couches and Aaron half-smiled at the pair of them before claiming a stool at the small bar. Saddling up. Andy was kind enough to provide him with a steaming cup of coffee and Aaron raised it and blew on the surface to make small waves. His own personal fire and beverage all in one. Eavesdropping because Aaron was nosey was fuck and he smiled to himself a little because the pair's conversation seemed entertaining in that guilty pleasure soap-opera sorta' way. So he pretended like he was minding his own business while he molested himself for cigarettes, sipping his coffee, hoping that warmth was extremely contagious. [Tucker] Clemens perked his ears at the kissy noises and made a hilarious attempt at leaping onto the couch. He almost made it, only to have gravity defeat him and leave him sliding down halfway until he just fucking quit life and went to lay back down. "We're puttin' you on a diet," Tucker said to his cat for the ten thousandth time, and there would be a ten thousand and first. Blues raised back to Beth, and he gave her a cavalier grin while she knocked on his walking cast. "Aw, c'mon now. It ain't that bad. It's a fracture. The ribs are the real issue. Wanna see?" Unlike with Freya, he didn't pull his shirt all the way up, because this was different. He was just giving Beth some good-natured shit, and he just tugged it up enough to flash his abs at her. Sure, he was strangely sweet for what he was. But he was also, you know, what he was, and every time he got a rise out of Beth he just drank it up like it was the tea that he was currently actually drinking up. "I dunno. Shit's pretty fucked up right now, yeah, I'll admit. But there's always a light at the end of the tunnel, yeah?" They weren't alone anymore, or alone in a crowd anymore, so Tucker derailed their previous conversational train to wave at the guy at the counter. Most people who came here tended to come back, unless they were passing through. He'd need to remember the guy, he supposed. The best way to describe Tucker North was in terms of juxtapositions. Hair that was at once kinda brown and kinda blonde, a grin that was kinda innocent but almost a leer, and a posture that simultaneously said incredibly lazy and ready to move at a half-second's notice. The only unambiguous thing was his eyes. They were blue. They were the kind of blue you weren't really supposed to find on people. [Beth] He's cute, thinking he's got abs, as in more than one, too. Who do you think you are, North? Your meathead cousin? Now, he's got abs. ... unfortunately, if you were to ask a certain redhead, that's about all he's got going for him. Yeah, yeah, Beth stared. She always did, when the hem of his shirt started heading north. She couldn't help it, literally or figuratively, really. Incubi; they think they're so damn irresistable, you know? She'd show him, one of these days. She'd show him good. Yep. That was happening. For sure. ... maybe. Probably not. Andy, however, hovered over the pair with mildly alarmed eyebrows that said 'this is a cafe, not a strip club, Jesus fuck, Tucker' before collecting empty pie plates and mugs and moving on. "I'm sorry," she shook her head, finally. "You were saying? Oh! Oh, your ribs are broken, yeah?" Then she started digging around in her bra, again. This time, it wasn't because there was some red-bearded ghost smothering himself with glee in there. She pulled a small vial of nothing appetizing out from under her blouse and handed it to him. Green. It was dark green, like stewed spinach, and kind of murky-watery-herbal-y. Yes, I'm an excellent writer, I can add -y to the end of anything and turn it into an adjective. Wooo. Shut up, it's 1am. "Roll it between your hands before you take it at bedtime. It's less revolting a little bit warm." [Tucker] Alright, alright, so he wasn't Cousin Meaty with his 8-pack. Yes, two more than a 6-pack. Tucker was more built for speed, agility, and grace. And, let's be real, for seducing people who were into guys, women and men alike. It was kinda his birthright or whatever sort of bullshit his dad was going to spin for him the next time Tucker was dragged into speaking to him. Beth's distraction was like a hit of his favorite drug, and he grinned that lazy, shit-eating grin at her when she snapped back into reality. "Not broken," he said. "Just a bit bruised up. Hurts like hell though. They tried to send me home with the heavy-hittin' pain pills, Vicodin I think it was, but I told em I'd rather hurt than be not all in my head. I got a test on Friday, y'know? How am I supposed to calculate heterozygosity between populations at the same loci if I'm out of my damned mind on pain pills?" Yeah, no, he didn't expect Beth to follow that, because he barely followed that. Blues dropped to watch her yoink the vial of whatever out of her bra. "Oh, you got somethin' for me in your bra, do ya? Some of my favorite things come from there. Two of 'em." You could hit him in the shoulder, Beth. It's okay. When she procured the vial, he didn't question her intent or her wisdom. He just asked for more info. "How much am I takin'? All at once? And what's it gonna do? mean, I assume it's a healin' tonic of some kind, but should I expect faster bone regrowth or just an easin' of pain?" [Beth] I had a wittier response than this prepared, I swear I did, but then Tucker said 'faster bone regrowth.' Beth smirked. Oh, how she smirked! She smirked and she smirked and then she smirked some more, and this is how we're ending this scene: "Your bone regrowth is plenty fast, Tucker. " Curtains. [Tucker] To be fair, he was half-incubus. Getting laid probably did help him recover.
|
|
Carley
VT:L Adventure Guide
Posts: 146
writes for: Alexander "Alex" Kearny (amoribundusher)
writes for: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours)
writes for: Hyacinth "Cinthie" Griswold (kerosenebridges)
writes for: Chelsea "Mackie" McIntyre (ficklefauna)
writes for: Miriam "Mira" Roth (ignafatua)
writes for: Ryan Malone (quicksilverwit)
|
Post by Carley on Oct 3, 2015 2:54:55 GMT -8
CAST: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours@aol.com), Jade "Jaycee" Cooper (verdantclarity@aol.com), Andrei "Ash" Popov (eatltup@aol.com) SUMMARY: Jaycee deals with her purely-hormonal crushes on Tucker and Ash by flailing and stammering around the former and pretending to hate the latter. Tucker gives Ash some advice on women and decides to take him under his wing. But not his literal wing. We've seen how well things go when he uses those. Ash also gets Jaycee's number and comes one half-step closer to maybe ridding himself of his pesky virginity. TW: There's a domestic abuse joke in here somewhere.
[Tucker] Since he was gimpy, Tucker was spared the indignity of having to go tromp around in a walking cast and take orders and pick up plates. Instead, he was relegated to work behind the counter, and he got around behind it with creative use of a desk chair with wheels. His shift would be over pretty soon--on the hour--but not quite yet, and he was thankful for the lull that had fallen over the coffee shop. A cup of his own, something with a heavy dose of caffeine and several pumps of sugary syrup, was in hand, in his favorite mug, the bright blue one with the chip on the rim that had a highly inexpertly painted black cat on it, one eye higher than the other. He was sure it was a child's handiwork that had been picked up at a thrift store. Other than his injured leg, Tucker looked like he was in good shape. Dressed in a long-sleeved gray v-neck, a pair of jeans, his apron, and a lone boot on the foot that wasn't adorned with a walking cast, he was poking through his phone to kill a little time. "Oi, Andy, c'mere and look at this," he called to the other barista, who loped over and loomed over him to see what he was gesturing to on his phone. "The lady's singin' to this blind, scared pig. It's this stuff that makes me feel like the world ain't as messed up as it seems, yeah?" [Jaycee] The semester was in full swing, and that meant that Jaycee really wasn't socializing too much. Not that she ever did all that much anyway. She was more of a lone wolf or a cuddly baby tapir something like that. She had one hell of a test tomorrow, which meant that she was going to be up at least until the wee hours of the morning if not all night. In order to do that, she needed to caffeinate herself. With her hair up in a messy up-do bun thing, pens shoved in to keep it up, Jaycee lugged her heavy messenger bag in through the door of Joe's. She deposited it with a thunk, pushed her spectacles higher up on the bridge of her nose, shoved her hands in her pockets, and started up towards the cou--... motherfuck, it was Beth's gorgeous boyfriend who she couldn't ever look away from, like he was a flame and she was a moth. Siighhh. She was just going to have to try to order without stuttering. She fidgeted a little bit, her shoulders coming up with a smidge of insecurity as she approached Tucker. And when she tried to speak, it first came out in a little bit of an airy squeak. She cleared her throat, and then spoke normally, but not without a hint of pink to her cheeks. "...D-Dirty chai, please." [Tucker] Yes hello, Beth's gorgeous boyfriend speaking. He was gimpy and seated and waxing poetic about a video of a crying pig, but hey. It was Tucker. Blues gave a little blink at the jingling of bells, and he smiled to...Jaycee, right? Yeah. Jaycee. The nervous-looking little one who he saw around sometimes, usually in the vicinity of Miss G's music classes. "Hey there, Jaycee. Dirty chai, comin' right up. Give me a little extra time to make it, please? I'm hobbled." He emerged from the counter enough to show off his walking cast, flashed her that pretty grin, and then went about the process of preparing everything. "How're classes treatin' you?" he inquired, admittedly with his back turned while he got things ready for her. "I've heard you practice sometimes when I'm waitin' for my turn at the piano. You're pretty damn good. Better'n I was at your age, but I think you got some discipline I sorely lacked." Because, you know, Tucker was busy having sex instead of rehearsing. "Is this for here or to go, by the way?" Please say for here. He had the perfect mug already picked out for her. One of Tucker's stupid little work pleasures was matching mugs to people. Like how his mun liked to horde all the colorful office supplies. [Jaycee] "Hot," she added in, then realized that could have been misconstrued, and she wanted him to know for suresies that she was talking about the drink and not him. "The.. chai. .. Hot and dirty. ... Oh dear. ... Warmed up, and with espresso," she fumbled with her words, unable to stop them from coming out of her mouth. "For... H-Here, just... over..." she pointed to the table where had put her stuff. "I'm... It's there... Here... Not, you know here," she said, pointing down at her feet meaning this exact place. "Eh heh heh..." she sort of forced a nervous laugh, then brought a hand up inside her sleeve to sort of scratch akwardly at the back of her head. "Thankyou," she said, all one word, for both the compliment in her playing and the fact that he was making her chai. Fuck sake, Jaycee, pull it together. [Tucker] "Hot and dirty?" Tucker, no. Tucker, stop. Tucker, please. Tucker, why. "That's just the way I like it." Tucker. "My chai. Though sometimes, when it's summer, I prefer it iced, y'know? Frosty cold, condensation drippin' down the cup, sorta thing." Jesus, she's a teenager and you need to stop. But sometimes it was hard to stop, because this was what he fed off of. He flicked imaginary condensation off his fingers, then got back to work on the dirty chai. It was poured into a large, squat sort of mug in a hideous color that was somewhere between puce and puke, but it was painted with a pattern of black and white piano keys in a circle all around. "There you go, one chai, hot and dirty." Don't wink. Don't wink. ...Wink. "And you're welcome. You a music major, or just dabblin'?" Look, Jaycee, don't feel bad. Tucker North was a lot of girls' awkward sexual awakening. And a lot of guys' awkward realization of latent homosexual tendencies. She was handling this better than Kearny did. [Jaycee] Why. WHYYYYY. It wasn't even that she had a crush on him or a desire to be with him? No, he was just. .. So .. beautiful. A siren among men or whatever. And he was an adult. Grown up, and mature, and older, and siiigghhh. His wink elicited a little squeak from the witch in the oversized tunic sweater, and she purposefully made sure that she didn't touch his hand when she took the cup from him. Don'tspilldon'tspilldon'tspill... She brought it to her lips and blew on it a moment before she took a tentative (albeit a little shakey) sip. "Good," she said, her voice cracking like she was Peter Brady. She pulled out a few wadded pounds and shoved them onto the counter, then hurriedly scurried back to her table. Now. Had she answered his question? No. She had not. Had she counted the money? No. She had not. She had essentially given him enough for three chais, but she reeeaaalllly didn't care because it got her away from him and allowed her to bury herself in her studies instead of making a total fool of herself. [Tucker] Grown up and mature were not the same thing, Jaycee. You know what Tucker had for lunch today? Half a grapefruit and half a box of cheese crackers that he shared with his obese cat. He'd run on that until...until right about now, actually, considering his shift was over. Sometimes part of being grown up was the freedom to do really stupid shit. He watched as she skittered off, counted the money patiently, and paused to untie his apron and pass the duties over to Andy for the night. "Alright, you're up, Andy. Thanks for pickin' up the slack for me til my leg heals." With that, he brought his coffee over to the table in front of the couch, then hobbled himself over to Jaycee's table to present her with the spare money. "Think you gave me a bit too much." he murmured to her, without a single mocking note. "You want this back, or do you want me to keep it and make a note that you've pre-paid for your next two drinks?" [Jaycee] To Jaycee, he was totally grown up and mature. She was sixteen. Anybody in their twenties was so mature because boys her age were just raging bags of hormones. ... Little did Jaycee know that literally all males of all ages were raging bags of hormones. That would be a rough lesson for her to learn, yeah? She definitely didn't see him come over her way, and when she heard his voice, she damn near dropped her chai. It spilled on the front of her tunic a bit and splashed onto the touchpad of her laptop. Nothing awful, but still she'd been startled. She used her sleeve to wipe it off her computer. "I uh.. No you can... Tip. It's a tip because you look g--..DID. DID GOOD. YOU DID GOOD." One wouldn't know that this was a gifted young lady here taking AP courses and earning college credit while still in secondary school. No, she presented herself like a total goober. [Ash] "I used to go out to paaaarties... and staaaand around... cause I was too nerrrviouss... to really get down... but my booooodddy... yearned to Be, Free..." Oh, hi, Ash. Singing Marvin Gaye today? Well, at least it wasn't a specific song. Like, "let's get it on," or "sexual healing," or any one of those things. Singing to himself, Ash made it through the door to start moonwalking along (and doing a damn fine job of it) all the way to a table, where he'd pull out a chair -- pause -- and then look over to see Tucker, who he'd pause to grin and wave at in the most goofy way possible. Clashed with his plain t-shirt and jeans today, as opposed to the 80's revival fashion he was wearing the other day. "The man who licks himself!" .... stupid Genie. "How goes it, blue eyes?" He asked, as he moved over to talk to him specifically. [Jaycee] WHY GOD WHY [Tucker] "Easy there, Jaycee. You're spillin'. Here..." And Tucker snagged a napkin from the dispenser and leaned over her to clean up her laptop. Look, at least he didn't go for her tunic and just let her clean that instead, even though let's be real the girl had boobs you could drown in at such a young age. Young age. Back off, North, back away, that's how you get in trouble. And speaking of jailbait, here was Ash. Lord. It was like being taken to a buffet and then being told he couldn't have any of it. "I don't lick myself, not usually. If I could, do you think I'd ever leave the house?" He gestured to Andy. "Just missed my shift, but Andy'll get you taken care of, yeah? Come join us, jailbait. How's it goin'?" Hey. ...Hey. An idea was brewing in Tucker's brain, one that would give him the energy that he needed to feed off of while simultaneously exonerating him of any accusations of flirting with people several years younger than himself. Smirking, he sipped his coffee. The cambion was parked on one end of the couch now, his injured leg propped up on the nearby ottoman. There was still that almost lazy, casual attitude to his demeanor, but that was always there. Even when he was on the clock. "Ash, Jaycee, do you two know one another?" [Jaycee] Dearest Goddess. Why hast thou forsaken me? WHY, GODDESS, WHY!??!?!?! As if it wasn't enough for Tucker to be there, then Ash had to walk in with his STUPID FACE. Though the lady doth protest too much on that part. The two best looking boys she had seen at Shepherd, and now they were both there. She really wished she had worn one of her crocheted hats so she could pull it down over her eyes right now. Instead, she made a bit of a groan in the back of her throat. The tips of her ears were red and hot, and her cheeks were progressively getting darker and darker, though it was a slow process there. "YesIknowAsh," she murmured altogether, then tried her damnedest to hide behind the ugly mug with the piano keys. [Ash] Ash looked over at Tucker, and then raised his eyebrows, hands lifted and presented in universal sign for 'I Surrender.' "I'm with you there, mate." Licking oneself, that is, and never leaving the house. "It goes," he answered, as he headed over to plop down next to Tucks. Or Jaycee. One of the two, anyway. He was happy wherever he was. "How 'bout you? What happened to your leg?" He ran a hand through his hair casually... paused... looked very, VERY serious for a moment, and then leaned in closer to Tucker, crystal blue eyes focused on him. "... was it Beth? Because if you need help, there are people who can help you. You don't have to stay in an abusive relationship." Badum tssh! The punchline being that Tucker was some shy battered housewife. Grinning again, Ash leaned back, and looked over to Jaycee with only mild interest. "We know each other. She can't stand me! But Hannah couldn't stand me either, and.. now, she can." Didn't fancy him but didn't hate him, which is all he could ask for. [Tucker] Blues danced between Jaycee, in all of her awkward and stammering glory, and Ash, who...well, Ash reminded him a bit of himself when he was sixteen. Brash. Knew he was good-looking. That kind of thing. "No, it wasn't Beth," he answered Ash, giving him one of those gentle shoulder punches that guys gave each other when they were fucking around. "I'm just a damn idiot and...well, the short version is I didn't look where I was goin'. The long version involves shit I don't think you'd believe if I told you." Trying to turn those leathery demon wings of his into something capable of flight, that's what. He'd only gotten about five or six feet off the ground, but that was from the top of the hill on the Green. He'd also managed to go horizontally a little bit. To the bottom of the hill. He'd fallen about ten feet. There was a curious blink of his eyes at the remark about Jaycee hating him. "Are you sure? 'Cause I don't think Jaycee's got a hate bone in her body, yeah? She's a sweet thing." Tucker, please. He wondered, in passing, if he could do what his sister did. Use his abilities to incite lust in the pair for one another instead of himself. But that seemed like a crap shoot he wasn't sure he wanted to take in public. [Jaycee] Lust?! Who said anything about lust!? Jaycee was a good girl, and she didn't do that sort of thing! ... Ever! And she didn't want to because boys didn't matter and they were stupid, and they were smelly, and they were... so, so pretty....... Ahem! She had been day dreaming a bit and she blinked herself out of it, her head shaking a bit. She purposefully didn't look at Ash, but her cheeks reddened a bit when Tucker implied that she was the sweetest of the sweet and couldn't possibly hate Ash. "No, he's right, I hate him." Jaycee, please. Please. You are absolutely the worst liar in the world. "Fall in a hole, Ash," she said, though she said it rather unconvincingly and into her suddenly-very-interesting cup of chai. Oh hey, there was a bubble, would you look at that? So round and perfect and just absolutely interesting........ [Ash] "... you are the second person who's told me that I wouldn't believe them." Ash gave a long, pregnant pause -- a pause that was so pregnant, it was on par with octo-mom, in fact. Then? After the build-up? He delivered the punchline, raising his voice, as if to give a nonverbal Really, Tucker?! REALLY?? "WE GO TO A SCHOOL WHERE EVERYTHING IS WEIRD. YOU SWAPPED BODIES WITH A CAT. ... after all that I've seen so far, I'm inclined to believe anything." He then looked over to Jaycee, however, and raised his eyebrows as she kinda hid behind her stuff. "... see? Hates me." He shrugged, and then looked back to Tucker, lips curling into a crooked smile. "... apparently, I bring out the worst in people. My mum would be proud." [Tucker] Oh, for fuck's sake. Tucker knew this game intimately, Jaycee. You say you hate him because you don't want to deal with how much you want him until he's between your legs, and then you continue to say you hate him. He'd danced this dance. But he didn't share that out loud, not while they were both here, no. This was something he'd need to take up with each of them personally. And the gears were turning in his mind now, and yes. Yes, this was something that he was going to fucking make happen. Instead, he just slapped a hand over Ash's mouth as he went into his outburst, and his voice went low. "Advertise it to the bloody world, why don't you?" he grumbled. "I'll tell you, I'll tell you. You weren't here over the summer, yeah? When people kept protestin' at Shepherd's gates, callin' for our blood? No, you weren't. You know we gotta keep a low profile." His hand slipped away from Ash's mouth, and he picked up his coffee and sipped. "Mmm. Why do you hate him, Jaycee?" [Ash] Ash used the preschool ninja tactic of LICKING TUCKER'S HAND to get it off his FACE. [Tucker] Ugh, gross. Tucker wiped off Ash's spit in that platinum hair of his. [Jaycee] Fuck sake, Ash. NO. She didn't want him. Okay, so maybe he was midly attractive, yeah? ... Maybe. .. Possibly. IF YOU SQUINTED OR SOMETHING, AMIRI-- oh what's the use. She kept the chai in front of her mouth, her shoulders shrugged upwards a bit and kept there in her tension and trying to subconsciously hide. Like a turtle trying to pull her head back into her shell, only Jay wasn't going to pull her head into her shirt. Tucker was right, she did have boobs for days, but she tried to downplay that, and somehow ducking into her shirt didn't seem like the right way to do that. Sip. Sip siiiip. She wrinkled her nose when he licked Tucker's hand, shook her head, and finished her chai. Why did she hate Ash? Uhh.. "Beause he's stupid," she quipped. [Ash] "Because, obviously, me not knowing what happened means that I should know to be careful. About things that happened. When I wasn't here." It was the no you weren't that made him turn a little sour on Tucker, though he did stop being a jerk about it. ... though, he also reached up and stop Tucker's hand from touching his BEAUTIFUL PLATINUM HAIR with that spit-covered hand, and by golly, he'd fight Tucker to save his precious locks. Glancing over to Jaycee to hear her reasons, however, he gave a little grin. "See? Worst in people. Never fails." At least you're interesting, Ash. Like. Chinese curse interesting, but still interesting. [Tucker] Fine, then. He wouldn't touch the hair, but Tucker did smear his spit-covered hand on Ash's cheek before withdrawing and smirking. "Look, I'm just sayin', when weird shit happens at Shepherd, it's probably best if it's kept quiet outside the school's walls. But if you really wanna know--without shoutin'--I tried to fly and I don't recommend it. Dropped like a damn rock, I did. Fractured tibia." Ash would probably stop listening at some point here because tibias bored him, or something, if Tucker knew the guy. So he moved on, tried to keep pace with his younger version's short attention span. "Aw, you don't bring out the worst in people. Jaycee, think you might like him if he--" [Jaycee] "No," she interrupted, not letting him finish. [Tucker] "...Well." Tucker hadn't gotten a chance to finish his sentence. He laughed a little. "Fine, fine. Suit yourself, Jaycee, but I swear he ain't that bad of a guy. Usually. Probably." Maybe. "When he ain't lickin' my hand. That's gross, Ash." He peered over at Jaycee. "How's the chai? Did I do it right?" At least he didn't ask her if it was hot and dirty enough for her. [Jaycee] She finally turned to look over at Ash. "Excuse you, but there is nothing bad about this," she said, pointing to her blushed face. "You haven't brought out the worst in me. I'm fine. This is fine. I'm just speaking my mind," she said as cooly as possible. Not half a second after Tucker asked her about the chai, she held the glass upside down only for one teensy little drop to fall out and onto the leg of her black leggings. "All gone. I'm going to get another one, thank you," she said, purposefully excusing herself from the table so that she could get away from the beautiful testosterone that was that area. She had come to study... It didn't look like that was going to be happening. [Ash] "... you can.. you what?" Fly? He can fly? HE BELIEEVED HE COULD FLY? HE BELIEEVED HE COULD TOUCH THE SKY? HE THOUGHT IT EVERY NIGHT AND DAY? SPREAD HIS WINGS AND ... fracture his tibia.
[Tucker] Tucker did not believe he could fly, not anymore. But he believed he could plummet.
[Ash] Wiping his cheek off (but not ready to go ham on Tucker for doing so, really, it was just the hair,) he grinned slightly. "See? Breathing proof, that." That she didn't like him, AND he brought out the worst in others. In either case, Ash sighed and continued to hang around Tucker, the cream cheese on that beautiful cambion bagel, and don't you wish you were able to take a bite of it? "Don't put your hand on my mouth. It's that simple." Or do. I mean. If you're into that thing. Kinda weird, though. Also, Beth will break your other leg, so don't, really. [Tucker] These two together really were a walking, talking, sexual nightmare for young ladies, and Tucker knew it and that was probably half the reason he hung out with Ash. The other half was because he wanted to take the guy under his wing--metaphorical, not literal--and teach him a thing or two about a thing or two. So that was why the light brown head leaned in towards Ash's blindingly blonde one, to speak softly while Jaycee was getting her refill from Andy. "Listen. She doesn't really hate you. I can feel it comin' off her, y'know. Can see the way she's lookin' at you. At both of us, really, but I ain't important here. So what I want you to do from here on out, if you've got half a brain under that platinum hair of yours, is listen less to what comes out of her mouth and look more at her body language. That's where the truth lies. She doesn't hate you. She's scared 'cause she doesn't know what to do about you. Seen it lots of times." Tucker pulled back to finish off his coffee. "Saw it in Bethy." [Jaycee] Jaycee wasn't scared! She wasn't scared of anything! Except maybe spiders. And turkeys. She was really more angry at herself, it was just easier to take things out on Ash and seem like a total raging bitch. She didn't want to have to kill Ash later, you see. That seemed like a lot of work. She had left the table and gone up to talk to the other barista who didn't make her blush just by being around her. Which was good. She needed some time to compose herself. In order to buy herself some extra time, she'd ordered one of those 'basic bitch starter packs.' You know, something pumpkin spice with like forty alterations until it was no longer recognizable as a pumpkin spice latte. She wasn't really that basic? Don't let the leggings fool you. But the longer he had to make it, the longer she could stay away from the boys. ... Also there were chocolate croissants, so she hung up there for a while. [Tucker] Tucker called that the Miss G. Pumpkin spice but decaf and can you add some chai and a pump of sugar free vanilla and and and and [Ash] Ash, you dummy! You stupid boy, you don't know anythi--and then Ash was leaning in real close to Tucker, talking to him man to man, those crystal blue eyes the only honest thing about his whole (stupid!) face. "...if she doesn't realize how she feels, then it's not my place to push her, is it? Pushing her will just make her fight it, and it isn't in my nature to go after people like that." That's why he turned really fucking cold toward Hannah, before he needed her as a dance partner. He just... he didn't push people if they didn't outwardly want him, and though he could go after Jaycee and charm her, he didn't like to be told to go away, even if she WAS confused about it. And Tucker could feel that, too! Could feel the lukewarm and still cooling feel of Ash's thoughts on Jaycee, and though he didn't not like her back, he just wasn't all up on that. Tucker could probably tell, too, that Ash's sliding scale of 'attracted to' put Jaycee one ticky mark below him, and even HE was low, compared to Naked Jaz, which was medium level. Shrugging his shoulders, he pulled away, and glanced after her thoughtfully. [Tucker] Ash really was a pretty thing. What? He had eyes in his head and a sexual orientation that was basically the equivalent of a spinning pointer on a Twister board that just never stopped spinning. He smirked at the boy, gave him a little pat on the shoulder. "You're a good person," he said, "even if Jaycee has a lesser opinion of you. I don't. Just try not to take her hate train personally, 'cause I can tell you from here that she means it about as much as the first girl I fucked." He pitched his voice high. "Tucker, you're such a menace, stop lookin' at me like that, I hate you." Which made him laugh in retrospect. "She didn't hate me two days later in the girls' room. And then she hated me again, actually...maybe my advice ain't best." Yeah, he could feel that sliding scale, and he dismissed the notion that Ash found him more attractive than a girl. Tucker was half-incubus. If Ash had a shred of bisexuality going on, he was going to be looking, because it was what he did and what he was. "What I am sayin', though, is that sometimes we tell ourselves a good, solid load of bullshit so we don't have to deal with what the heart and the body actually want." [Jaycee] Jaycee didn't exactly make herself likable around Ash, and she knew it. It was purposeful and calculated. Make him dislike her, and all her problems were solved, aye? Teenager logic or whatever. With her drink order completed, she took the new mug in her hands and slowly started over to the two boys, slightly more composed and poised than she had been. At least she wasn't stuttering or pink-faced. She cleared her throat, and settled herself into her seat. "Sorry 'bout that. You two can go ahead and carry on your conversation. Pretend I'm not here, yeah?" She at least managed to look directly at the both of them. Tucker first, then Ash, though her gaze lingered perhaps half a moment longer than it should (and for once not the stink-eye!) before catching herself and looking down at her laptop instead. She wiggled her finger on the trackpad and busied herself with trying to find the lecture slides. [Ash] Ash was a goddamn dark horse, actually! One minute he's being STUPID and singing LAME SONGS and making you want to smack him for yelling I'M BORED all the time, the next he's up in your face giving you the sort of responses that could make it onto a Hey Girl/Ryan Gosling meme. Also, he's pretty, so that made it extra-worse when he managed to be a decent human being. "I can't promise not to take it personally. I don't hate her, I just don't like being treated like a monster." He shrugged at the mention of bullshit, though, because it seemed like Jaycee was sabotaging herself, which seemed the exact opposite of being able to properly deal with things. In either case, she returned, and Ash looked at her, and allowed a crooked smile to cross his lips while he spoke up again. "... why the piano mug?" He asked, taking note of it. [Tucker] "Ain't no monsters here, Ash. Not you, not me, not anyone. Ain't no monsters here." Thus spoke the half-incubus to the half-harpy while the witch came back with her coffee. With Jaycee's return, he grinned and lifted his coffee cup her way. "Pretend you're not here? Why would we wanna do that? You are here. 'Scuse me, kids, I need a refill." Which was going to give Jaycee and Ash a little time to talk. Good job engaging her about the mug, though. He decided to let Jaycee discuss it rather than explaining why he had picked it. The cambion began to gimp his way along to the counter with a cavalier smile thrown back at the pair, and he leaned heavily on the wood and proceeded to chat Andy up a bit. "Did you see the one with the pugs covered in cotton balls? Makes me want a dog, but Clem would try to eat the damn thing. Or be terrified of it, I never know with him. Give me another, Andy? Blonde roast, three cream, two sugar, one pump vanilla. And one of those chocolate croissants Jaycee got, those look great. Two, actually, wrap one up for Bethy." [Jaycee] TUCKER NO TUCKER WHY HALP. Ash was absolutely right in that she was sabotaging herself, but it wasn't at all because she couldn't properly deal. It was because of her family history of uh... Males going missing. She didn't want to do that to his pretty blonde head? It would be a damned crime. When Tucker started to get up, Jaycee's eyes went wide and she initially tried to stop him. "NO! No you should let me do it beca--..." But he was off anyway. She thought the fact that he was using a medical boot might allow her to get up again for him, but no luck. He was gone, and she was left with Ash and his stupid face with that stupid smile. ... Hnngh. Please don't vomit, Jaycee. That would not go over very well. Okay, so she was going to have to actually have a real conversation with him, huh? Instead of telling him to fall in a hole or insulting him. ... Okay... She could try that... She cleared her throat, and it started as a bit of a stutter. "I-I... I play the piano, but I didn't..." She sort of gestured towards Tucker with her thumb over her shoulder. "He just kinda.. gave it to me... Probably on purpose, because I really... Really don't think he does anything by accident..." [Tucker] Falling from the sky and breaking his tibia was absolutely an accident. [Ash] No. Of course not. No monsters here! Cough cough. Anyway, Tucker was going to make his getaway, trying to push those two lovebirds together like Your Jewish Grandmother, but Ash seemed a little more BORED by the time he'd gotten all the way up to the counter. Settling back in his seat and allowing both arms to cradle his own head (he looked so COOL, you know, because he was so casual and relaxed and legitimately not caring about all that much around him,) he turned those crystal blue eyes over to Jaycee and nodded. "Yeah? I play piano myself." STOP TAKING EVERYONE'S QUIRKS, ASH. I don't care if your harpy mama IS known for dancing and playing music, nobody said you could be good at piano, guitar, singing, AND dancing all at once. Stop it. Stop at once. "Hit me up if you wanna try one of those interesting for-two-piano things, I'm game. ... and trust me. I'm sure he has accidents." See also, foot. [Tucker] "Oh, dammit...no, never mind the croissants. Bethy's allergic to chocolate...let me get two cinnamon sugar cookies, instead. One to go, one for here. Thanks, Andy." He grinned, took the items, and returned to his seat, still slow and cautious and uneven. The coffee was carefully placed down, and this time he sat on the other side of Ash, so that he wasn't physically inserting himself between Ash and Jaycee, which sounded incredibly wrong no matter how he thought about it. A bite taken of one of the cookies. A sip of coffee. He lounged in the couch, grinning at the pair. "Oh yeah? A duet? That'll sound good. I've heard her play sometimes when I'm waitin' for my own lesson. She's got some serious talent, she does." Look, Jaycee, he was talking you up! For fuck's sake, soon enough he was going to start smooshing their faces together and screaming NOW KISS at them. [Jaycee] NO TUCKER DON'T YOU DARE. Anyway. She sort of blinked at Ash when he told her that he played as well and that he... was up for a piano duet. It was one of those totally confused and taken-aback sort of blinks. And she stared at him kinda stupidly for a moment like she couldn't believe that he could, you know, do something constructive. Surely looking pretty was enough? She shook her head to shake herself out of it, sipped her drink, then put it down on the table while she thought. "I... Yeah, okay..." she sort of sputtered. She reached up and pulled one of the pens from her hair, which caused the whole messy bun to come cascading down around and past her shoulders. The pen cap was yanked off with her teeth, and she removed one of Ash's hands from behind his head. Scrawl, scrawl, scrawl. She wrote her digits on the palm of his hand with a little JC under it. "I should probably go, though..." she said, and then the pen was capped, the computer stowed away, and Jaycee tried to high tail it out of there as quickly as possible. Which, of course, meant that she accidentally stole the piano key mug and she smacked her hip on the corner of a table as she rushed past. GG, Jaycee. [Ash] Ash seemed just as bewildered as her! No, not because he played piano, he knew he had talent, but he was professional enough not to be THAT guy -- you know, the guy that rubs your talent in other people's noses. No, he was surprised that he got a number out of the ordeal, when all he had to do was offer to play with her. Huh. ... yeah, okay, we'll roll with that. Shrugging, he looked at her as she prepared to run off, so he could flash her a dazzling smile. "Catch you soon," he offered, before looking over to Tucker, eyes wide to convey the nonverbal messege of check THAT out. [Tucker] As Jaycee rose to give Ash her number, Tucker's expression was rather Mona-Lisa-esque. That sort of enigmatic smile-not-smile that he hid behind his fresh cup of coffee. "Have a good night, Jaycee. Bring the mug back when you got a chance, yeah?" Wince. Oof, that slam into the table looked like it hurt. Once she was out the door, he turned back to smile at Ash, bigger now, brighter. "Well, well. Would you look at that. See, you just gotta start small and work your way up. Told ya she doesn't hate you. She just...well, I ain't no psychic or psychiatrist, but I'm willin' to bet she's a bit scared of what her body does when she looks at you." There was a pause. A smirk. A little bit of honesty from Mr. North. "You're good-lookin'. I dunno what you are, but I think you might be a little bit like me." His messenger bag was on the ground somewhere, and he reached into it, pulling out a pencil and a piece of paper. "First thing you do, you transcribe that number onto somethin' other than your hands, yeah? Otherwise you're gonna risk losin' it when you take a shower or somethin'. Never, ever, ever lose a girl's number if she gives it to you, Ash. Ever." [Ash] "Start small? I didn't start anything, really," he replied, still quite amused that he jumped from I see you play piano to TAKE MY NUMBER. He bet that if they were together, she'd be one of those girls who'd slap you if you kissed her, followed by immediately stepping forward and snogging the Hell out of you. Sitting up straight again, he reached over and tried to take the pencil and paper. "You're the expert on girls' bodies, right?" It wasn't said meanly, it was said in that very dull, kind of bored away. 'Course, as he wrote down her number, those crystal blues flicked up to Tucker. "... doubtful." He grinned. "I mean, I could be I s'pose, but it's not in me, y'know?" Sure, he could make the panties dropped if he wanted to, but it felt cheap. You hear that, Tucker? You're cheap. "Also, you keep givin' me advice. ... why." It wasn't a question, it was a statement, because Tucker seemed awfully keen on hookin Ash up, and it kind of felt weird. Like, right shoe on left foot, weird. [Tucker] "I ain't an expert on anythin'," he replied, brows raising at the way that Ash was so quick to bore. Either it was an act, or the kid needed a constant Ritalin IV. And he was certainly not cheap. He mostly just worked on making Beth drop her knickers these days. Not that he had to do much. What stymied him was the advice question, and he had to think about it for a minute before he figured out the right way to respond. "Because you remind me a lot of myself when I was your age," Tucker replied, feeling fucking ancient as he did so despite being a mere twenty-one years old. "You got a little somethin' in you, a spark. You wanna make people like you, but you don't know how, do you? I didn't either. Look, I dunno. Maybe I just wanna smother some smaller version of myself with advice." Which was followed by a silence of the downright leaden variety. One that was broken by his smile. "Hey, if you want me backin' off, I'll back off. I ain't your dad. But congrats on gettin' her number. Told you she didn't hate you. If she did, she would've dumped that coffee on your head and stalked right out." [Ash] Maybe he just thrived on excitement! But in either case, he was starting to get up, because he'd forgotten to do a Deus Ex Machina, and he needed to get on that right now. After pocketing the number, he looked over to Tucker, and allowed a crooked smile to cross his face. "It's frustrating, but sometimes it's condescending for you to give me fatherly advice on a girl that I'm only lukewarm on." If he were head over heels for Jaycee, he might be like HELP ME SENSEI I MUST HAVE THIS GIRL, but he wasn't. She was confused! Her confusion, in turn, turned him away. After giving a little shrug of his shoulders, he began backing away toward the door. "Thanks for the congrats, though!" He meant it; that smile could lie, but it didn't THAT time. "... and for saying I'm pretty. Promise I won't tell Beth." Yes, Beth wouldn't care, and that was the punchline. "I'll be off for now. You gonna be able to get home, Tiny Tim?" Get it? Limping/weak? [Tucker] "I ain't tryin' to be condescendin," Tucker replied with a small frown on his lips. "But I'll knock it off. Just know you can ask me somethin' if you need it." When he smiled again, Tucker saluted him lazily with two digits. "Any time, pretty boy. Go home, you're out past bedtime, you are." That was in jest, of course. Blues glanced towards his leg, dispassionately, and he shrugged. "I got crutches behind the counter. I'll make it home fine. Thanks, though. G'night, jailbait." Jesus, these kids were going to drive him nuts. Maybe this was just some sort of fucked up glimpse into his future. If he could just fix...well, that was a whole other story. He had a lot to think about when Ash left.
|
|
Carley
VT:L Adventure Guide
Posts: 146
writes for: Alexander "Alex" Kearny (amoribundusher)
writes for: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours)
writes for: Hyacinth "Cinthie" Griswold (kerosenebridges)
writes for: Chelsea "Mackie" McIntyre (ficklefauna)
writes for: Miriam "Mira" Roth (ignafatua)
writes for: Ryan Malone (quicksilverwit)
|
Post by Carley on Oct 3, 2015 16:59:10 GMT -8
CAST: Freya Black (darkestiove@aol.com), Tucker North (hesitantlyyours@aol.com) SUMMARY: Tucker finally gets to ask Freya the questions that have cropped up after his dinner with his parents. The answers are more than he bargained for. TW: None
[Freya] There was no text message conversation prompting Freya back into Joe's the night following last. In fact, she hadn't made an attempt to speak to her brother at all today. She'd blame it on life being so busy if asked, but really? Totally avoiding. She was no longer embarrassed on having been caught in the game of giving a false name, or having what you thought was a one-night-stand pop back up, but it was the heaviness of the conversation that had begun before his Beth had arrived that was bringing Freya to avoiding Tucker all day. But. She was realistic enough to know that it always hurt less if you just pulled the bandaid right fucking off. Like she ever needed bandaids. The art of fucking to heal was something she'd perfected long ago. And probably should teach to her brother. Minus the .. whole fucking part. Ahem. So here she was! Pushing her way back into the coffee house with the hopes that he'd be there. Freya was dressed simply, a highwaisted black pleated skirt fell into a short hem against pale thighs -- only offering a few inches of those before black stockings took over above her knees and bled down into ankle booties. The top half was found in a loose tucked in silky sort of blouse the exact color of her eyes, though she had most of that covered by an open black cardigan. There was a certain just-fed glow about her in the skin, and those eyes. Remnants of someone elses life force brimming over and freshening our girl up. [Tucker] After Ash's departure--snarky little shit, he was, but Tucker didn't mind too much--and Jaycee's fumble on out, Tucker had been left by his lonesome while Andy finished his shift. Joe's would actually be closing soon, but Tucker had a key and an alarm code, so he could close the place up. Which was good, because the cambion was taking a nap on the couch, and Andy was letting him. He had seen the dark circles under his coworker's eyes, and heard him distractedly mumble something about not sleeping well while he was closing out the till. So Tucker was left to doze, half a sugar cookie uneaten on a plate before him, his heavily doctored blonde roast coffee going cold to the point that he may was well just ice it. Still, no matter how tired he was, he could feel the presence of blood that called out to his own. One blue eye cracked open. "Frey?" It was sleepy, muzzy. "Is that you?" Of course it was, who else would it be? Daddy? No, he didn't have the urge to curb stomp anyone. He carefully negotiated his injured leg off the couch, then the other one, and motioned for her to come sit with him. "Hey. Sorry. Guess even blonde roast can't keep me up forever." He tried to smooth down some of that slightly-too-long hair, but ended up just making it messier, the curls at the nape of his neck tangling together until he finger-combed them out. "How you doin' tonight, Veronica? Or do you prefer Ronnie?" Sorry, Freya, you were never going to live that down. He held out his arms to her, ready to receive her in a hug. [Freya] "Who else would it be?," she wryly echoed his thoughts; breaking off a bit of his cookie -- then taking the bigger half, and dropping gently down onto the couch beside him. One of those long legs was drawn up in a silky smooth slide of thigh over thigh to drape it over it's twin, and she leaned into him a little to accept the hug. A soft murmur in his ear, "You're well aware that I can kill you, right?" Still, he got a press of nude lips to his cheek before she pulled away and broke off another piece of the cookie to chew on it thoughfully; sweeping away some of the crumbs from her short skirt. "I'm well. And you? Leg holding up? We can amputate if it gets to be too much of a bother." Sly little deviants smile, and another pop of cookie tossed between her parted lips. [Tucker] Tucker opened his mouth to argue about the cookie for half a second, then shrugged and let it pass. His coffee was brought to his lips, sipped, and then he made a face, because nobody likes lukewarm coffee. "Ugh. Dozed too long. Tastes like ass now. Wanna sip?" He shoved it playfully in his sister's face, then accepted the kiss to his cheek and returned it with one of his own. "Aw, you wouldn't kill me. I'm too pretty to die, yeah? You're lookin' awful well fed at the moment, you lucky thing." While Tucker never looked underfed these days, not in the slightest, it didn't change how worn out he looked. "The leg is...eh. I'd prefer it if we don't remove it, but I'm open to suggestions. Bethy gave me somethin' to cut the pain, and it's helpin', but this cast thing is a dreadful inconvenience and the velcro picks up Clemens' fur." Freya was afforded a gentle prod in the hip. "You got a little time to stay and chat before you go chasin' after possibly homeless boys to get your fix? I bet that one cleans up well. He's got a lost-soul kinda look 'bout him, yeah?" [Freya] "Gross, no," the slope of her perfect nose crinkled up it's freckles at him and Freya even canted back some away from the offering of gross coffee. She wasn't a coffee drinker in the first place, but why would she want to drink it when it'd been left to go cold?! "I might not kill you, but I'll hurt you in places that'll make you think twice before you tease me again." A little glare his way, before she dropped the act, and just snickered instead. Closed lipped on just how well fed she was, until she tossed the rest of her stolen cookie in to be chewed. "Amputations all I got, sorry. Other than time. I've that, for you." The glare came back, half-heartedly, and she swatted at his good leg. "I don't chase." Because truly, that's not what it'd been. "And he's not homeless, he doesn't even look homeless, you freak. Talk about something else." Freya shook a little fist at him. So threatening. [Tucker] How the hell could Tucker not laugh at his sister's adorable little displays of false rage? "Aw, Frey, did I touch a nerve?" he cooed, then flicked her lightly in the forehead. "I ain't judgin', I very sincerely mean he probably cleans up nice. But fine, fine, I got better things to talk about than your sexual conquests, and mine are...well, you know mine, these days. Most of mine." There was always his wiggle room. There would be some at the end of the month. "I wanted to talk to you about somethin' I overheard between Mum and Dad the other night." You know, he had to get some props for the fact that he called his father Dad instead of Sebastian. "It was really odd, and it got Mum mentionin' Mama Lucas, so I'm wonderin' if Aunt Ginger may've said anythin' to you about it. Maybe she knows somethin' Mum doesn't, what with all Mum's runnin' around and doin' the doctor thing." There was a quick glance taken around the shop, but it was late and, other than Andy, they were the only ones present. "First of all, to give you a little background. I wouldn't call it proper engaged yet, but I have talked to Bethy about marryin' me at some point. So I told Mum about that. Told her her full name, Beth Lyons, and she got all quiet and weird. And then when I was comin' out of the bathroom after dinner, I heard 'em talkin' about it when they thought I was still on the other side of the door. A curse." [Freya] "I don't care about yours," came a rather snotty reply -- though there was some truth behind it. Sex was a part of their genetic makeup, a thing they needed to survive, and a thing they used naturally. They didn't always have to share everything! Her attention was all his when he started to tell her of all the things, and a brow arched a little bit when he mentioned her mother too. "About what?" But rather than fully answer, he gave her some background, and Freya picked a little at the top of the warm black stocking about her thigh; keeping quiet until he was done. Which was hard. Because he was talking about pre-engagements, to the point of actually telling his mother about it -- which meant their father knew too and by the time he was finished, because of something else he'd said, Freya was just staring at him. Staring him down, forgetting to make her face go blank, and letting something a bit like ``oh fuck`` seep into her expression. Stare stare stare, too long of a stare, with nothing coming out of her mouth, until. "Tuck .. I don't think you can marry her," she spoke softly, shifting to sit up and drop her leg from it's drape so both feet were on the floor and she was leaning her elbows onto her knees to stare at him more. From this angle. [Tucker] Andy wandered by. He took Tucker's cold coffee and replaced it with something warm and fresh--and decaf, because the guy was having a hard enough time sleeping. An orange, one of the cambion's favorite foods, was also pressed into his hands. Deft digits wasted no time in peeling the orange, which he did with a grateful smile up at his coworker. Andy was a good guy. The orange was split in two, and he passed half of it to Freya while they spoke. For whatever reason, her response didn't alarm or upset him. It just made him roll his eyes skyward. "Somehow I knew you were gonna say that," he replied, sounding a little amused. "Yeah, yeah, I know, meant to fuck indiscriminately and spread chaos in my wake, not to come home to one woman til I'm too old to get it up. I get it. But it's not like I'm bein' forced into anythin' I don't want here. It was my idea. Trust me, I know what I'm doin'." Because that was why she was looking at him like that and protesting, right? Because she thought he was an idiot for trying to live a normal, human-y life? He reached out and patted her shoulder. "Aw, c'mon, weddings are grand. The happy couple always puts off enough energy for you to feel it radiatin' off them. Like a contact high. And I'm sure you can find your own entertainment durin' the reception. It ain't gonna be for a while anyway, I mean. But what do you think this curse thing is about?" Somebody was not connecting the dots properly. Tucker wasn't Beth. He was smart, yes, and quick to understand, but he was just so off base in regards to what Freya meant that he couldn't begin to see what thing A had to do with thing B. [Freya] The orange was declined with a little shake of her head. The rolling dread that was filling up her stomach probably wouldn't appreciate the acidic citrus at the moment. He didn't understand her statement, and her head began to shake more urgently now. "No, no," she tried to interrupt him, but he wasn't really hearing her, or she wasn't speaking loud enough or insistant enough, and Christ on the cross, now he was talking about receptions? "Tuck. Tucker! I could give two flying shits about you getting married, but you can't marry her. They're never going to allow it. You -- you're the curse!" Sort of. It was a bit more complicated than that, wasn't it? She should probably explain that, to the best of her ability, as it'd been told to her. But instead, she just dropped her head so that her face went hidden by fingers with their deep blood red nails; shaking her head again and trying to form fucking words about a brain that was working too fast. Or to slow. Probably too slow. [Tucker] He had already popped out one of the orange sections and was about to bite into it when she cut him off. He couldn't marry Beth? And he was the curse? The orange was set down onto the cookie plate, and he wiped his fingers off on his jeans. "Excuse me?" It wasn't an amused sort of reaction, not at all. All of Tucker's usual good cheer was gone. "Ex-cuse me? I'm a curse? I'm her curse?" His eyebrows had pretty much developed a life of their own and were making an attempt to nestle under his hairline. "What in the name of all things holy and unholy are you talkin' about?!" He couldn't keep his voice from raising. Andy looked a bit nervous, behind the till. Tucker waved him out with the words, "It's fine. Go. I've got my key. I'll see you tomorrow." On the offchance a patron actually showed up at this hour, Tucker would just tell them they were closed, unless it was somebody he or Freya knew. With attention returning to his half-sister, he stared her down, those blues darkening. "You know somethin', don't you? Well you'd better start fuckin' explainin'. I made a promise to that woman, Freya, and I don't like breakin' my promises." [Freya] Tucker's voice rose, but Freya's head did not. Not until his burst of questions brought Andy's attention, and she lifted her face first to peer at Tucker, then straightened her spine. "Not you, exactly. Well, maybe. I'm not entirely too sure how it works. I was really fucking young when they explained to me, Tuck." She paused, letting him converse with Andy a moment, and then cringed at little as he rightly accused her of knowing things he didn't know. "I don't. I mean, I don't think I do. Maybe I do. It's all jumbled. Something about our father wanting something he couldn't have, and he did some shit. You know how he is," a hand waved flippantly, but no .. not Tucker didn't. Not like his sister did. "He couldn't get what he wanted and .. ugh, I'm telling this all fucked. You should ask him. Maybe he'll let you see .. well, no. He doesn't know I saw." A crinkle of her brow. She was talking in fucking circles and she knew it. A breath hitched, and Frey reached over and placed a hand on his knee. If anything, she was going to send him a little bit of calm through those persuading fingers. "All I know is we're not to get mixed up with the Lyon's family, Tuck. That it's bad, on both sides." [Tucker] The anger was...was it misplaced? Freya had been harboring secrets, but was she harboring them intentionally, or was it just a matter of them never coming up in conversation? He was breathing deeply to try to steady himself, but as Andy locked the door, the pinprick-dance of pain along his scapulae told him what was coming. "No!" he snapped. "No, I don't fuckin' know how our father is, Freya, because I ain't seen him in nineteen fuckin' years! Did you conveniently forget the part where he ditched our mums? Some bullshit about wantin' us to have a chance?" Or at least that was what Sebastian Moreau had told Charlotte North the day he left her and the blue-eyed two year old with his mouth full of cinnamon candy. "He may've popped in to your life for a hot second when you got yourself expelled from Auburn, but he sure as shit hasn't bothered with me. Not til you came back to England." Tucker was on the verge of making a connection, but his anger was too thick to get there. How come Freya knew how dear old daddy was, but Tucker didn't? Her hand to his knee just got him staring at her, and he twitched his leg away. No, no influx of calm. He wanted to feel this anger. It was a long time coming. "Let you see? What the fuck did you see, Freya? What did Dad show you?" The shift to demon was not quite happening yet, but his eyes shone that unearthly hue that nothing should ever, ever have in their irises. A blue so bright it shot through you. "What. Do. You. Know." He ground out his words. [Freya] Tuck jerked his knee away, but Freya was banking on that -- and grabbed at it again. This time sinking her fingers into muscle beneath the flesh to take a good hold of it. He didn't want the calm? Too bad. Here it came. Pulsating and hot. "You are not going all demon on me. And if you can't talk to me like a rational adult, I'm going to walk out of that door." Freya had little patience. She never had. Which was why she was the exact wrong person to have this conversation with him. It should have been Charlie, and it should have been Sebastian, the way she'd been sat down at ten and quite simply told to keep her hands out of the Lyon's cookie jar or there'd be hell to pay. It'd worked for her then, and still worked for her now, even though she'd gotten a little curious and gone snooping. "He didn't show me anything. I found a journal in his bedroom," Freya spilled secrets like they were well known things. "There is something to do with an ancestor of ours, and our father. That's all I could make out of it, it didn't really make much sense to me at sixteen, y'know? "Really angry slashy strokes of his writing, like he'd dug the tip of his pen in really deep." Or quill. Lord knows it was probably a quill. "The name Lyons, over and over. Then Lucas. Over and over there, too, angry too, until it wasn't anymore. Until that name was written in a way that's .. I don't know, hard to explain, Tuck. It's all hard to explain, because I really don't know. I didn't question it when they told me to keep away." [Tucker] Artificial calm was shitty. It was like forced tranquilization, and Tucker hated it, but he knew that Freya was right about one thing. If he was going to learn what he needed to learn to keep all his promises, he was going to have to settle the demon for a while. Later, later, you can break later, he told himself, though the pain still gnawed at his scapulae and he could feel the wetness on the back of his shirt, the tiny surface wounds oozing, a precursor to the emergence of his wings. He rolled a shoulder like a nervous tic, and he listened. Lyons. Lucas. They were related somehow. "Mama Lucas...Mum said Mama Lucas used to say somethin' to her, but Dad cut her off." His jaw tightened, however, as one connection snapped into place and brought a glimmer of the fury back into his gaze. Just a glimmer. "Sixteen. You found Dad's journal at sixteen, did you, Freya?" His hands clenched into fists, fists that he itched to use to grab onto the neckline of his sister's shirt and bring her in so she'd understand just how fucking serious this was. He kept them at his sides. "You went snoopin' in Dad's bedroom at sixteen, did you, Freya?!" Tucker couldn't keep his voice down. It rose again. "Who were you livin' with in America, Freya? Who? It wasn't your bloody Aunt Valerie, was it?" Click, click, boom. [Freya] Guilt, and something a little more, washed over her expression as he began to put two and two together to make Freya got the life he didn't get to have. So many questions, nearly each one ending in her name all but spat from his mouth like it tasted horrid. She answered each one, because Tuck was about the only person on this planet -- any of them, and even any parallel universes too -- that she didn't lie to. "Yes." His hands balled at his sides, and she tilted back, letting go of his knee in the process because should he sent those fists flying, she was fairly certain that she could get out of his reach much much faster than he could get at her with that leg of his. No, she didn't lie to him, but she also was a firm believer in not telling a thing did not make it a lie. "Yes, at sixteen," she confirmed .. and by now was scooting across the couch to get to the furthest opposite side of it. He'd claimed he was too pretty to get hit .. well, she was prettier! "She lived there too, Tucker." See, not a lie! "But it was his house. Sebastian's house." Do not mention to your brother, dumb girl, how you even used Moreau at that fancy schmancy private high school you went to. "They sent me to him, when they took me away." [Tucker] Despite his anger, Tucker would never hit her as anything more than a light jest. He could hear Beth's voice from last night, cutting through the fog for just a moment, telling him that hitting his sister was not nice. Of course she had said that to him. She had a brother. She had a brother, once. She had a brother until Tucker North walked into her life. "You lived with our father. You lived with our father since you were fourteen years old. And all those letters and all those emails and you never, never, not once, thought to say anythin' to me about it?" There were other emotions at work here, too. There was the conflict of never wanting to be like his father, while simultaneously being hungry for his approval. Which Freya, apparently, had. Tucker drew in a steady breath, exhaled, forced himself to carry on a little longer before he hit the breaking point, when in reality he had gone past the breaking point about ten minutes ago and it was now a faint dot on the horizon. When he spoke again, his words and his tone were measured. "The Lyons family is cursed to die, Freya. To lose children 'cause of...acts of selfless love." He looked at her on the other side of the couch. "You're right. I am the curse. You know she had a brother, Frey? A twin. A boy. Doc. He was every bit as sarcastic as she is, and every bit as handsome as she is beautiful." Tucker wasn't really looking at her now. More past her, above and beyond her shoulder. "I found Beth at a midsummer bonfire. Litha. It's what they call it. Freya...Frey...you ever ache for somethin' so much it makes you physically sick to force yourself to walk away? I was with another girl, then. Tryin' to be good for her. Beth sent me away. She was this beautiful, wild creature in the dyin' embers of a fire and she had blackberries on her mouth and on her fingers and my fingerprints in blackberries on her arms. She sent me away. Sent me home. Selflessly." His inward breath shook. "Not long after, they found Doc Lyons scattered across a graveyard like he was fuckin' roadkill. I'm why he's dead. I've already cursed her. The least I can do is try to make the rest of her life a little happier. Try to make up for what I did. Just a bit." [Freya] "I wasn't allowed to." Simple as that. She'd been allowed whatever sort of communication she wanted with her family back home, could tell them anything she wanted, go on at length of what she was doing in the states. On the one condition that she was never to mention Sebastian to her brother. "Don't forget that I was forced to go there, taken away from everything that I knew, that was familiar, that was home. I didn't ask to leave, I didn't ask to go live with him." Because she could see the blame in his eyes as he looked at her, as he peiced it all together proper like. She went quiet when he started talking about the curse that had been put on his girlfriends family. Kept saying her name, and she twitched a little every time, they way he drove his point home with it time and time again. His question that he asked her without looking had one answer for her to give, and that was a very firm, "No." She tried, really hard. Like really hard, you wouldn't even believe how hard, to keep the distain from entering her face. Maybe she even succeeded. Everything he was saying sounded like rubbish to her. So feelsy. So weak. So gross. Love was gross. But her head shook, there at the end. "Truthfully, Tucker, I don't think you're the curse. It's our father. Something he did, with her family, and with ours. You can't stop fate once it's already been set in motion, you know that. You're not to blame for her brothers death." Because their father. "But .. " Freya scooted closer again, since he was no longer yelling at her, or looking very punchy. "What if that's not all of it? What if there's more to it? What if by staying with her, it only adds to whatever the fuck this curse is?" The possibilities were as endless as Sebastian Moreau's wicked imagination. [Tucker] It was all taken out of his sails by the memory of Litha. He could unravel the curse, marry Beth Lyons, have three flawless kids with her, and die of old age by her side, and that night would never, ever leave his head. And yes, love was gross. And weak. Mun feels you, Freya. But Tucker now understood, maybe just a little, why they were so different where matters of the heart were concerned. He was raised by his mother, a human woman, with no contact with his father. Freya had Daddy's influence running through her brain, not just her blood. When she came closer, there was no move to hit, but he did roll his shoulder again. Yes, meet his newest anxious tic, a shoulder roll that meant he would soon transform into a majestic demon flap-flap, emerging from his nerd cocoon. "You make a point," he admitted, though very, very grudgingly. Tucker, however, did not get where he was without being incredibly stubborn. "But what if my bein' with her is also the key? What if some sort of union between Lyons and Lucas is the solution? What if we were told to stay away from 'em because it would break the curse and undo all of Dad's hard work? We gotta find answers, Freya. You know I don't like goin' back on my word. Not to anyone." She had been a wealth of information tonight, and he curled his arms around her, cautiously, in another hug. "I'm sorry I yelled. It ain't...it ain't your fault, either. I'm mad. I'm mad as shit. But...I ain't really mad at you. Fuckin' livid at Dad and Aunt Ginger and Aunt Valerie. Mum too, if she was complicit. But not you." His smile was humorless and fleeting. "We didn't ask to be what we are. But our family could've made it a touch easier, yeah?" [Freya] "Romeo and Juliet was just a story, Tucker." The line of her jaw clenched some with the grit of her teeth as he tried to find a way around it all. Freya just didn't see one. For her, it was very cut and dry. She knew, already, that this wasn't going to be allowed to go on, but she kept her mouth shut on it. It would only provoke more of his stubbornness, and then she'd get stubborn, and then they'd fight, and he wouldn't be the only one yelling, and she was pretty sure she might be coming down with the sniffles from all the cold chills that were going around her lately. No, that wasn't true. She didn't get sniffles. She was just a brat. "I wouldn't be anything else." That wasn't entirely true either, but Freya was rather stuck with the human side of things wasn't she? "Talk to him. Ask him all your questions, he'll tell you the truth." [Tucker] "Good, because Romeo and Juliet ended up dyin' after three days because they were stupid teenagers. This ain't some petty infatuation, Frey. But I digress." He laid his head atop hers, lowered it so he could kiss her crown. "Talkin' to Dad is at the right bottom of anythin' I want to be doin'. But I'll do it. 'Cause I guess I gotta." Do it for Beth, Tucker. Take one for the team. "You gonna be alright if I close up shop and get us outta here? I got a lot of thinkin' to do. I gotta clear my head before I go traipsin' off to Dad to play twenty questions, and I gotta memorize cranial suture closure order for this stupid test on Friday." He was twitchy. There was only so much longer he'd be able to hold back. "I don't...I don't wanna just leave things bad between us, Frey. You're one of my staunchest allies. You're my best friend. You're my sister." So said the boy who was too human to the girl who was too succubus. [Freya] "Nothing is bad between us. You worry too much. You think too much. This is what this fucking love shit is doing to you." Heaving a sigh out past her generous mouth, Freya palmed the couch between them so she could push up from his hold; mercury eyes searching the blue of his for a moment. "Shut it the fuck off, all of it. Work on cranial structure until your brain explodes. There's priorities. You're a god damn cambion, Tucker North." The way she hitched a breath made it clear she cut herself off from saying more, because truthfully she didn't want to kick the poor guy while he was down. One arm went about his neck, and she hugged him hard then. "I'll always be all of that," she reassured, because she wasn't at all mad at the man, there wasn't at all anything bad between them. Not on her end. She wasn't made like that. She was rubber, made for things to roll right off, and not to stick. Rising from the couch, and adjusting her skirt at her waistline a bit before holding out a hand to him to offer help up. "Maybe you ought speak to my mother," came softly, teeth scraping about her bottom lip a bit. "They're still fucking, you know. I suspect that my youngest sister isn't just mine, but ours." [Tucker] Tucker was overthinking from day one, really. A brain that ran a mile a minute. He could've run laps around his secondary school peers if he hadn't been shoving his cock in whatever would hold still long enough. This time, when he smiled, there was a bit more humor in it. "I ain't real good at this cambion thing. Maybe I should ask for a redo. Think I can be a werewolf this time? I always did like the outdoors." The hug was returned, tight and with an extra little squeeze, before he took the hand that was outstretched and clambered to his feet. He watched Freya a moment, let her drop her tiny bomb in the aftermath of the huge bomb, and strangely? He laughed. "Yeah, that somehow doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Pretty sure he's fuckin' Mum, too. I don't know if they always were or if they just started up again, but I'm pretty sure they're still fuckin'. Should we worry about your sister? Our sister? Dad's gotta stop knockin' up these human girls, he's gonna be payin' out the ass in child support if he keeps this up." Anything to keep the mood a bit lighter. Tucker began to hobble his way towards the door, though his hand caught in Freya's to gently lead her along. "But you're right. I am a cambion. And I gotta do what I gotta do." Get the rage out first. Then feed. Otherwise he'd damage Beth. Not in the fun way. [Freya] "There's no do overs. Just do betters." Oh wise Freya Black. A soft snicker escaped her, and she hleped him to his feet. "Like I said, I only suspect. And that's mostly because she's evil as hell. He just does what he was put in this world to do. That's basically the definition of an Incubus, Tuck," she chided, letting him lead her outside -- but that was going to be where she parted ways. "I'm always right," she mumured almost automatically, as if it were a thing she said often. Another kiss was smeared to his cheek, and Frey took a few bouncing steps backwards away from him. "Be good," she teased, cause she knew -- when compared to her -- he always would be. A waggle of fingers, and she turned and peaced the fuck out, brussel sprout. [Tucker] "I'll be good." Tucker smirked and locked the door of Joe's behind them, the lights off, the building quiet for the few hours before it would open again to the early morning crowd, of which Tucker was not a member in any way, shape, or form. If it happened before nine AM, it could go fuck itself. He looped his arm around her neck once more, tugged her in, grinned as he whispered. "Lest you think I've completely lost my touch, sister mine, you ought to take into consideration that I choose not to keep the whole...incubus thing permanently runnin'. Only when I want it or need it. And when I do turn it on, Frey? There ain't a straight woman in the school who ain't lookin'. I've even got my own wacky stalker." As she turned, he smacked her in the butt. "Go on. Get outta here. I got shit to do." It was only once she departed that he hightailed it to the shadows across the way. The anger he'd been sitting on emerged in the form of leathery wings and needle teeth and razor claws. Where he was going, he really had no idea, but losing himself in the woods around Shepherd seemed like a good plan.
|
|
Carley
VT:L Adventure Guide
Posts: 146
writes for: Alexander "Alex" Kearny (amoribundusher)
writes for: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours)
writes for: Hyacinth "Cinthie" Griswold (kerosenebridges)
writes for: Chelsea "Mackie" McIntyre (ficklefauna)
writes for: Miriam "Mira" Roth (ignafatua)
writes for: Ryan Malone (quicksilverwit)
|
Post by Carley on Oct 8, 2015 4:08:36 GMT -8
CAST: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours@aol.com), Beth Lyons (lyonsoffire@aol.com) SUMMARY: Tucker wants to tell Beth about what he learned from Freya, but he also needs to feed. In the immortal words of the girl from the taco commercial, why don't we have both? TW: NSFW, rough consensual sex
[Tucker] Through some outright miracle of the divine, Tucker had managed to get himself through the majority of the day. He had sat through his classes, learned about founder effects and African prehistory and genetic drift, and done his homework. He had fed Clemens. He had even managed to get a small nap in, which was good because after last night, he was running on very little sleep. But now the sun had set, and he was looking for Beth. At least he texted her rather than just tried to hunt her down, though the part of him that was still soaked in a demon's mentality would have very much enjoyed the chase. Meet me at our table. I have info. Fair warning, I need to feed. But I can wait. And he waited. Tucker was fidgety when he had this much on his mind, and he sat hunched on the table's top with his feet on the bench, bundled up in his faux-leather jacket while scuffed-up boots beat a disorganized tattoo. He'd found some time to eat, finally, in the form of a pomegranate. Half of it was held in his hand, the other left neatly in a ziplock baggie beside him. Red-stained digits dug out the little arils, and he ate them a few at a time. This, a rushed bagel, and a large amount of caffeine were pretty much what he had been surviving on all day. It wasn't good for him. He knew that. None of this was good for him. The stress, the lack of food, forcing himself to hold out on feeding. Internalizing all of his anger. It wasn't good for him. [Beth] Fair warning, I need to feed. It furrowed her brow and pulled her bottom lip out further than the top one as she read it. On any other night, it might have been a booty call, but their conversation at Joe's two nights previous put a whole different shine on it. Beth was clearly distressed as she jogged toward the Green from Turner Hall, eventually planting a booted foot beside Tucker's and using the bench to push herself up. Her floral skirt fanned out around bare thighs as she turned to deposit herself in Tucker's lap, taking care not to disturb his pomegranate or situate herself in any way that might prevent him from continuing to eat. "What's happened, then?" She leaned in close to press a sweet kiss to stained lips, and let others trail off the side of his face to catch his earlobe in gentle teeth. Apparently she was worried about his energy levels, because it looked like she'd come ready to multi-task. "Tell me." [Tucker] On any other night, if it were a booty call, his language would have been more persuasive. Comments about how gorgeous her mouth was. Innuendo about needing her touch. A photograph, maybe. Oddly, Tucker never sent nudes. But he did like to send pictures of the blankets suggestively pooled around his bare hips. None of that tonight, though. Just punctuated urgency. When Beth arrived, it was none too soon, and he caught her mouth in that kiss, his head tilting to let her get to his ear. "Mm." That was the first he could think to say, because her touch was already what he needed. "Pomegranate?" he inquired, holding it in front of her while the other arm looped about her waist. "You can take the other half, if you wanna." It was a good thing she was starting in on him, because he looked like a mess by this point. Tired, pale, his eyes losing a little of that unearthly sheen. "Stay seated, though. I've learned a lot. I dunno if you're gonna like any of it. I don't like any of it. But I'm gonna tell you this first, okay?" There was a firm grip on Beth's hip now, fingertips pressing hot and insistent through fabric. "I made a promise, I ain't breakin' it, and I love you, no matter what. Alright?" It was a dire preface, and he knew it, and he followed it up with a nip to her throat. It was late. He could just bend her over the table and take her from behind, right? [Beth] "No, thanks," she murmured against the angle of his jaw. Her multitasking stopped, momentarily, as that preface came. Beth pulled back and stared at Tucker with the biggest, saddest brown eyes, despite the heat digging into her hip. "Tucker..." And while she didn't resist his nipping, her reaction was definitely less than exuberant. She straightened up in his lap and watched his weary face before climbing down, which might have offered him a glimpse of bare ass. On her knees on the bench, between his, that's where she'd be when he told her. It might have been odd to anyone else that she was smoothing a palm up the crotch of his jeans with that look on her face, but sometimes normal is nobody else's business. "You tell me what's happened right this minute," she insisted, leaning forward to drag an open-mouthed kiss up his zipper. It was late. And he was starving. The little witch knew the score; she hadn't come expecting romance, and what little foreplay she was offering up was just to get him riled and hard so that he could do what needed doing. (In this case, her.) "You're scaring me." [Tucker] Her eyes. Oh, goodness, her eyes. He hadn't seen them that sad since the night they sat together on this very table and talked about her brother's death. So he mustered up a tiny smile, just for her, and buried his nose right in that spot where her neck and her shoulder met. At least until she slipped away. "You ain't wearin' anythin' under that skirt," he observed, a little shaky. Good. Excellent. But she was insisting and oh dear lord her mouth. He spread his legs for her, obediently, and shifted his hips against her hand. In what may have been the least surprising twist in the history of the entire plotline of Shepherd University and beyond, he was already half-hard. That probably wasn't a twist at all. "I talked to Freya," he began, knowing she was going to multitask and praying that he was good enough to do the same. "I asked her if she knew anythin' about curses and the like. And oh, was she ever a fuckin' wealth of knowledge." Snort. "She was raised by our father, for starters, when she was in America. Said she wasn't allowed to tell me. And one of the things that Dad said to her was to stay away from...from your family, Bethy. She was instructed not to get involved with the Lyonses." The cleaner of Tucker's hands threaded through those dark gold tresses, curled digits around them. "So she got curious and she went snoopin' in Dad's room. She found an old journal of his. And I dunno what he's got against your family or the Lucas family, but the man's mad as hell. I think...I think he cursed your line." For anyone else, this would surely be bonerkill central. Tucker, on the other hand, was quite noticeably aroused by the time he finished speaking. "I ain't stayin' away. I ain't scared of no stupid fuckin' curse. Freya thinks it's fate, that I can't undo it, but sometimes Freya's kinda...blinded." [Beth] "From my family?" It was confusion moreso than an actual question, which could hopefully be gleaned by the tone of her voice, because her face was obscured by a curtain of dark, dirty blonde that fell out of place as Tucker's hand moved back through her hair. She reached out to make quick work of button and zipper and didn't waste time pulling that 'noticeable arousal' out from where it hid from her. Some people call it a dick. It didn't matter what it was called, really, just then, because no matter what you want to call it she was wrapping a deliberate grip around it. "Raised by your...?" Well, that didn't sit well with her. Where had their father been, then, when Tucker was a teenager? He had time for Freya. "I've asked Mum," she murmured against rigid flesh before giving it a nip. "She doesn't know any Lucases, but she suggested I ask Uncle Thomas. He's the eldest of us." That was an understatement. "You think he...? Oh, love, that's impossible -- the curse dates back centuries. Your Da's what, late forties? Early fifties?" Her response to everything else, assuming she had one (she did, there wasn't much she didn't have a response to) was cut short by a quiet moan; mouth full and delighted about that, at least, fist slipping and sliding with the assist.
[Tucker] "Yeah. She was told you don't get tangled up with Lyonses 'cause bad things happen if you do, I suppose?" Though there was nothing bad going on right now, oh hell no. Just her grip, just the whisper of her mouth against the tip, had him sitting up a bit more properly. Tucker rolled his shoulders, rolled his neck, heard the pop and felt the tension slip away. "Oh, Bethy. My perfect little everythin'. No wonder I forget to feed. I hardly ever need to, and there ain't nothin' that tastes better than you." Could something actually be a triple entendre? Because leave it to him to come up with one, if it was possible. In this state, it was obvious, the way he was pulling the energy in. Red-stained fingers curled in the air above her head, making a repeated grabbing motion around nothing, pulling something intangible. The other hand was still in her hair, and as he felt the warmth of her mouth around him, he shuddered. "Mmmph. God. Um. Where was I. Right. She...she said that...she found this journal page. Could've been ancient. The names Lyons and Lucas scrawled time after time in such an angry hand he almost tore through the paper. We gotta figure out where Lucas and Lyons coincide. Y-you talk to your Uncle Thomas and I'll--oh, Jesus, Bethy." He pulled, just a little. Pulled on her hair and shifted his hips towards her a little more and forced himself not to just outright fuck her mouth. "H-how long do incubi live, anyway? I dunno..." His eyes were alive and vibrant and electric blue behind fluttering lashes. [Beth] "Everyone knows that you don't get tangled up with Lyonses," was her quiet lament. Tucker's notable restraint was her cue to move, which gave her the opportunity to speak again. Beth planted flat palms on each of Tucker's thighs and hoisted herself up from her knees. One of those palms moved upward and pushed at his sternum to ease him back onto his elbows as she crawled forward, straddling his hips right there on that tabletop. They were going to get arrested for public indecency, some day. "Take care that you don't go too long without feeding, please?" Please? When, aside from begging to be fucked harder, had Beth ever used that word? "I haven't the foggiest as to how long incubi live, but you've promised me the next sixty to eighty years and I intend to have them," which meant that she wanted him to take better care of himself. A breath stuck in her chest as she rolled her hips. It was a slow, almost agonizing hilting. Her head fell back and her chest shuddered with exhalation once he'd taken up his rightful place inside all her warm and wet. "Oh, that's my favorite part, I think," she whispered, curling fingers into the shoulder seam of his shirt before she began to ride him. "Fuck, that's good." It wasn't that she'd glossed over anything that he was telling her. It was all there, in her head, but her first priority was his well-being. They could Scooby Doo after he'd come. "Oi, yeah... talk to... unf..." So much for multitasking... at least for a little while. [Tucker] "Do I look like I give a shit?" Tucker ground it out through clenched teeth after she said that everyone knew not to get tangled up with her family. Never mind the fact that no, he hadn't known. Never mind the fact that he blamed himself all the more for Doc's death now. Never mind the fact that even if he had known, he would have done it anyway after seeing her at Litha. Freya would have found him weak. She didn't know the strength that love gave him. She was up off her knees now, and he watched in amused surprise as she just straddled him and went for it. His clean hand smoothed down her skirt over her bare ass, though not without a swift, open-handed slap to one cheek just to feel it bounce and hear her squeal. "Such a dirty little thing," he teased her. "Don't worry. I'll make sure I feed. Gotta keep myself healthy, y'know, make sure I can satisfy you til we're too old to function." Her hips lowered and his rose and he met her halfway, letting her ease down with him fully inside her. Deep. Perfect. God, he wanted every part of her. Tucker seized Beth's hips with that too-firm pressure of digits again, held on tightly, guided her, though she really didn't need his help in the slightest. "Brainstorm later, fuck now," he growled, pulling her down onto him, hard. Tucker held her in place for a moment and arched his back, forcing himself just that little bit deeper. "Sometimes I just wanna make you come so hard you hurt," he bit out savagely. His hands slid under her shirt. He left pomegranate stains on her skin. [Beth] Beth just laughed. No, he didn't look like he gave a shit, especially not right then. There was something just the tiniest bit guilty in her laugh as thoughts that had no business racing through her head while she was full of him did so anyway. Maybe she should have pushed away harder. Maybe she should have been more direct. Maybe she should have forced the legend of the curse through his memory until he believed her instead of letting him stew in skepticism for months before presenting her with a promise ring. Maybe she should have... oh! Oh. Her eyes flew wide open. "I am not dirty," she sassed him from above in a breathy hiss, but that probably wasn't true, because she might have liked the sting his hand left on her ass more than he liked leaving it there. "I'm just... highly responsive to my partner's nee... Jesus." It slowed her while she struggled for control of her senses, but it didn't slow them, thanks to Tucker's hold on her. It was him that was dirty. She was just rising to the occasion! Brainstorm later, fuck now. Why, it was almost as though he'd read her mind! Is that a thing incubi can do? Could he read her mind? If he could, it might have made even him blush. "What makes you think you don't, hm?" She'd settled back on his hips, a little, sitting straight up so that he could fill his hands with her breasts while she fucked him. "What makes you think anyone's ever fucked me better than you, Tucker?" Oh, now she's just goading him on. Beth, you really are dirty. [Tucker] Could...could he read minds? Freya could project. She had empathy abilities. And Tucker did have a pretty intriguing knack for knowing what people wanted, sometimes before they themselves knew it. Take the whole discussion with Ash yesterday, before Freya showed up and North's night went south. About Jaycee. About how the words coming out of her mouth were definitely not the thoughts that went through her head. Maybe he could. Just a little bit. Right now, he was infinitely more interested in something else, in Beth, gazing up at her and marveling at how absolutely perfect she was. How good she looked. "Oh, you are dirty, Bethy," he whispered, hands sliding upwards under her shirt to take advantage of the extended invitation and trail those rough musician's fingers over her breasts. "You are. And I love it. I knew it from the day I met you, too. It's always the sweet-lookin' ones." Why were they always mouthing off to each other during sex? Oh right, because they thrived off this sort of back-and-forth. "Maybe someday when you're not...when you're not in the mood, I'll tell you all about the little fantasies I had about you before you let me be with you." His digits squeezed, slightly, on her breasts. One was palmed, his grip gentle and warm. The other got treated to a rough tug at her nipple, those calloused fingers so good at knowing just how much was too much and staying ever so slightly under the threshhold of serious pain. "You wanna know a secret?" he growled. "Nobody ever fucked me better than you, Bethy." His head tipped back, his eyes aglow, so blue they seemed to threaten to give off light. Sparks danced under his skin, and his teeth grit in anticipation. [Beth] They'd always mouthed off to each other during everything else. Why wouldn't they do it mid-coitus, too, right? Maybe that was why Beth always seemed ready for him when Tucker came calling. Maybe it was the witty game of Pong they played around the clock; knocking that little white ball around just because for the first time in her life, at least, she'd come up against someone who could keep up with her. Just because they weren't smart in the same ways didn't mean that he was a slouch in that department. After all, he could call her bluff from a kilometer away, most of the time, and what's more is that he wasn't afraid to do it. What's that they say about strong women being too intimidating to find their equals? It didn't seem to hold true for Beth. The majority of her attraction to Tucker was emotional and intellectual, which perhaps explained why she was just as pleased as punch to have him in what ever form he came to her needing release in. Male, female, half-demonic: None of that mattered. There he went, calling her dirty, again. She didn't argue, that time. At least he liked it. "Some day? When I'm not in the bloody mood?" she panted. "Do you plan to go on vacation without me and write your fantasies to me?" That was the only way it was going to work out the way he was suggesting. "Does it count as cyber sex if you email them to me, or will I need to check the post?" Fingers curled, digging white half-moons into the forearms that disappeared under her shirt so that hands could further antagonize her in case words weren't enough. Her cry out wasn't exactly voluntary or quiet, but once it had echoed through the brick buildings surrounding the Green, she fixed her gaze down on that blue glow and those sparks. "Close, are you?" she teased, obviously not too far from losing her composure either. "Going to fill me up with come? You know how I love it when you do," the whispers fell thick and incendiary, meant to pluck at what ever string held him back. [Tucker] It was true. They provoked one another as a matter of day to day life. Sure, he spoke only one language--English with questionable application of proper grammar--and she spoke many. Her brain was constantly on the move like it was running a marathon, and Tucker's was more of a lazy stride with detours to google pointless information because it had popped into his head. But he was witty and quick on the draw and usually ready with a pun, and he could take sarcasm and dish it out beautifully. And he had so much banter ready to throw back her way, he really did. Jokes about how he'd mail dirty letters to her written in elaborate ciphers so he could arouse her physically and mentally. Or maybe he was going to say something sweet about loving her too much to leave her behind for too long. But it was the last thing she said that broke him and brought out that monster he tried to hold down. Hey, Beth, ever been lifted up while riding a guy? Because that was just what happened. Tucker rose up, snarled, and moved with her. Amazing how he didn't slip out of her for so much as a second. But he got her down under him, on the cool, damp grass, and held her down by her arms. "Yes." Yes to what? Close? Going to fill her? Needed to check the post? Did it matter? His eyes were too blue and his skin was too warm and his movements were unsteady and he lost himself. And although he was in what amounted to a frenzy of some variety, his mouth was soft and sweet on hers when he came. Doing just what she told him to do. Filling her. He parted her lips with his tongue as his hips gave one last jerk against hers, and he tried something new. Tried to let her feel what he felt, the way Freya had imparted him with calm last night. It was like fire burning through her, but a fire that felt natural, like it should have been there. Energy, something ancient and timeless that dated back as far as the species itself. Tucker would argue that it was even older. [Beth] She'd have liked those dirty ciphers. That probably wouldn't have surprised anyone. She'd have sat in the library, cracking codes and erupting into the occasional fit of hushed giggles as she worked her way through them, then gone back to Turner Hall to... take a lot of long baths, until he came back to her. Yes. Yes. Just the one word, but it said so much to her. Beth had cried out, again, this time in surprise as she found herself on her back and pinned beneath the dominant side of Tucker that she had only met one other time. The more comfortable they grew with each other, the less restrained their lovemaking became. (Lovemaking, fucking, what's the difference with these two?) And Beth rather enjoyed the knowledge that she could flip that switch in him with a few well-placed strokes and a few whispered words. When she surrendered, it was a violent arch against his weight, legs wrapping around hips and gasping throat bared for all the world to see the way Tucker's love forced her pulse into overdrive, and then fire entered her bloodstream. She shuddered, forgot to breathe, began to choke on it. Gasps became heaves until at last she was quiet, again. There was an odd sparkle to the gold in her complexion, something that absolutely was not there, before. It almost looked like... embers. Glowing, smoldering embers left behind by some long-ago flame that shouldn't have been able to touch her so many generations after its inception, but it had. Still, the love in her eyes as she watched him come down from his feeding frenzy was a palpable one. It hadn't been burnt away. "Feel better, love?" she asked warmly. [Tucker] Now he really was going to write her dirty ciphers. He was going to learn cryptography just to pass them to her when they had their little five or ten minute catch-ups between classes, to stick them in the pocket of her coat with a wink. Give her a little something to think about. God, Tucker was a nightmare, wasn't he? At least now he was a slowly recovering nightmare, and he propped himself up with one arm while the other brushed fingers against her gold-twinkling cheek. She burned like a hearth. Like fire made earthy. He was speechless, but it wasn't from orgasm. And when the words finally came, they came sounded out and awkward and something that he surely had learned only recently. "Je t'aime." When he said it again, it came more smoothly, and a little less couched in Cockney. "Je t'aime." Teach me to say it again, Kearny, he'd said to the hapless Canadian psychopomp, and then I'll leave you alone and quit holdin' your coffee hostage. "Yeah. I...I feel better. I'm sorry." Blink. "What? No, no, I ain't sorry at all. You felt it, didn't you, Bethy? You felt what I felt. You felt what it's like to feed." The fire burned away to such an inner peace that Mackie's hippie parents would have been jealous. Like a good meal that left you ready to face the day's challenges. Tucker rolled off of her, awkwardly smoothed her skirt down her thighs, and fell onto his back beside her, grinning up at the sky. "Thank you. And I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news tonight. I was hopin' for an easy answer when I talked to Freya." [Beth] Don't tell Beth that Tucker is a nightmare. She'll eat cold pizza before she goes to bed every night to try to invite him. Look at him; busting out that little bit of French borrowed from a Canadian for her and everything. She smiled and countered, "Je suis décidé à vous épouser, amant," without explaining what it meant or giving him time to ask. "Vous ne devez dire quand. Jusqu'à ce que la mort nous sépare, si je meurs en premier." Neverminding that all of the above Francois was a terrible, terrible idea, according to the news he'd delivered her while she was between his knees. "You're so --...!" she began to laugh. She wasn't sorry, either. "That's better. Is that what it feels like, for you? That... heat?" Oh, Tucker. Tucker, you shouldn't have done that, Tucker. "It was... stifling. I couldn't breathe. Maybe I can't... digest it, like you can." Peaceful, she felt, but not at all like she'd just eaten. Warm, like her body was trying to incinerate something it couldn't get hot enough to even put a dent in. Like she was developing fever. "Mm. No, thank you. I had a lovely time." There would be no further talk of Freya or Sebastian, that night. Beth did her best to distract her weary cambion from his woes, whether with humor or with her body, and by the time they agreed that enough was enough, a new day had dawned. Their walk of shame back to Turner Hall was nothing new. Would Clemens even bat an eye? [Tucker] All of that French got the world's most blank stare from Tucker as he tried to parse it. "Oui?" he hazarded, because the only French he knew on top of that was food words and he was pretty sure the correct response was not, you know, coq au vin, croissant, or pinot noir. "Yeah. That's what it felt like. Are you okay? It's just...Freya can do weird empathy stuff like put calm in a person's head, so I thought maybe I could put elation in yours. I dunno. I wasn't thinkin'." Of course you weren't, Tucker. That 145 IQ goes right out the window when you've got your dick in something, and it's even worse when you've got your dick in Beth. He dragged her into his arms, pressed kisses to her throat, and belatedly remembered that he might want to pull his pants back up before somebody found them like this. With a laugh, he sort of absently tucked himself back in. There would indeed be a walk of shame, and he was preparing for it, but it wasn't so much a walk of shame as a walk of yeah we just had sex outdoors again and you should all be used to this by now. "So are you gonna translate all that pretty French you just said? Because it sounded absolutely beautiful comin' out of your mouth, but I didn't understand a bloody word of it." It was Tucker who stood first, strengthened, and he slid his arms underneath Beth to pick her up in a princess carry. "I just asked Alex to teach me to say I love you. Held his coffee hostage til he did it. Fixed him with that stare. Y'know the one." The all-heat cambion stare. "He's got a little crush on me, I think." Leverage. It was all about leverage.
|
|
Carley
VT:L Adventure Guide
Posts: 146
writes for: Alexander "Alex" Kearny (amoribundusher)
writes for: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours)
writes for: Hyacinth "Cinthie" Griswold (kerosenebridges)
writes for: Chelsea "Mackie" McIntyre (ficklefauna)
writes for: Miriam "Mira" Roth (ignafatua)
writes for: Ryan Malone (quicksilverwit)
|
Post by Carley on Oct 9, 2015 0:49:51 GMT -8
CAST: Hannah Fein (scalesenpointe@aol.com), Tucker North (hesitantlyyours@aol.com), Jasper Cross (ofnoends@aol.com), Nero Dollarhyde (hatecuiture@aol.com), Ash Popov (eatltup@aol.com) SUMMARY: It's just another Thursday night at Joe's Joe...until it isn't. TW: Injury.
[Hannah] Something about the little white dots of light that lined the point at which Joe's exterior walls extended beyond its interior ceiling seemed warmer to Hannah, tonight. With her head cocked to one side and curious eyes of no fewer than every color you could ever imagine blurring into something called hazel, she trailed behind the pace she'd kept only a moment ago. Artificial fire threw sparks, sent shine sliding along lengths of the real thing, left dangling carelessly between her shoulderblades against a grey cable-knit backdrop that was too big for the dancer. The way she reached toward those lights with a distracted hand might have communicated a desire to reach up and snatch one out of the blue-near-black, muddy with gunmetal grey sky in some other scene, but there was something else on her mind. Her ginger brow furrowed as an invisible force both blew a light out and forced her hand back as though she'd stuck her fingers into an electrical outlet and been taught a lesson for it. A hiss pulled back through pearly whites that caught a singed middle finger tip between them announced her displeasure. "What is going on, around here?" she murmured, more to herself than the night. There was way, way too much energy in South Bank, lately. Everything that could hold it, including her, was brimming... it would have to spill over, soon. The jingle of Joe's jingle bell as the figure that had lurched ahead of her got to the door's latch, first, pulled her attention that way. That was where she was supposed to have been going, after all. [Tucker] Within the warmth of Joe's, Tucker had just finished his shift. This was obvious from a few elements. One was the fact that he had just untied his apron and was slipping out from behind the counter. The other was the phone that he had pinned between ear and shoulder. "No, no, I'm just sayin' that ain't me," he insisted. "I know I made overtures about cuttin' my hair, but ain't no way I can touch any sort of a holy thing without gettin' my bloody fingers burnt off. You stay clear from that thing, yeah? Love you too, beautiful. See you tonight." He slid his phone back into his pocket and meandered towards the other side of the counter to place an order, just as Hannah walked in. The little dragon-girl who he knew was not a big fan of cambions still got an upnod from the amicable half-incubus. "Evenin', Hannah. Time for your Nothin' Special? Andy, the usual for me." That would be coffee with cream and vanilla syrup instead of sugar, which his coworker knew well by now. "Oh, yeah, and also, let me cover Hannah's drink, yeah?" He smiled to the redhead. He liked Hannah, after all. She was little and clever and was somehow made of steel even though she looked like she should have been made of marzipan. Then again, there were very few people Tucker disliked. [Jasper] Days were going by so quickly with the winter setting and somehow the little Cross couldn't find it in herself to complain despite the odd going ons. Shit was all sorts of weird, but they were surviving it, right? Sweater weather all over again, leaving her in an off the shoulder sweater that exposed a shoulder worth of inkwork on her left side. The rest was remarkably covered up as the knitted fabric went all the way to her navel. Not-so-shredded shorts fit along her lower half in pale denim while thigh length knitted socks fit along legs before disappearing into boots. Somehow she managed to show off flesh while dressing even more modestly that normal. A soft hum left painted lips as she slipped out of some assortment of shadow. She'd utterly failed to avoid the Roads like she'd planned. They were just too useful and fast. Was coffee addicting? Because she found herself with a little bit of a craving for it. Which is why there was a quick jaunt right to the counter, body lifting on booted toes and fingers curling against the edge of the counter. "..Cooooffeee pleeeeease. Lots of cream, and sugar. And whipped cream!" It was becoming a regular sort of order. "Oooh, and one of those muffin things. Yeah..that one." Poppyseed, because why not? While she waited dark lined prismatics looked about to catch sight of familiar faces with a bit of a smile. Like an honest to goodness smile-smile. How often did anyone see those on her anymore? Maybe the End times was coming and this was a sign. Regardless, ringed digits lifted to wiggle at the two while she awaited her bastardized order of coffee we shall lovingly call Jasper's MoJoe. [Hannah] Nothing Special. Always Nothing Special. Always in the short, wide mug with nothing on it but French white and a little red H, underneath, in Tucker's handwriting. It doesn't take long to pour a cup of medium French roast, drip, so she was able to fend off the chill that followed her in from outside and had been doing lazy jetes between the ridges of her spine until the moment she could hold the thing in both hands like some coveted thing that Indiana Jones might swoop in and steal from her at any moment. Hannah spared its contents a gaze and an inhalation before -- speak of the half-devil! -- a gallant sir North piped up to have her habit put on his tab for the night. "Thanks, Tucker," half a smile pulled out of her in response. Her head whipped to the side, jingle bells again, to spy friend-on-probation Jasper padding through the door after a little coffee with her sugar and cream. The half smile remained. It was a little softer and a little heavier than normal all at once. "You should really have Andy put that on the menu," she mused at the cat. "I bet Mackie would live off them during finals week." Andy, of course, shot a couple of finger guns off at her, then slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead like he should have thought up a finals week caffeine-and-sugar-rush special years ago. That was it, for Hannah, by the way. That was all the words she could think to say, just then, and the half smile faltered. Dragons and cats aren't entirely dissimilar, you know. When she wasn't where she wanted to be, she tended to look in that direction. Her feet almost always followed not too long thereafter, if they could help it. Where had she lost Tucker to? Was he near it? ... you know, it. That ugly chartreuse faux velvet chair with the loose seam. They hadn't had a chat, not a real chat, since...well. August. [Tucker] And there was Jasper. Tucker never knew where she came from or how she got there. She just sort of appeared, the way Freya tended to. Her order was noted, of course. Right, coffee with like seven hundred different ways of doctoring it up. "Gonna put you in a sugar coma, it is," he muttered into his coffee, which he was sipping as he walked to his selected spot for the night. And yes, it was over by the disgusting chartreuse nightmare that he often referred to as Hannah's Nasty-Lookin' Seventies Chair. On the couch near it, in fact, which he occupied with all five feet ten inches of himself, feet propped up so boots were at least kept off the upholstery. Now, if he knew anything at all about the goings-on between Hannah and Jasper, he said nothing. He just left it all unsaid. Or maybe he had no idea. Which was why he found himself asking the redhead, when she took up a seat, "How's it been goin', anyway? Ain't seen you around too much, save when you come in for coffee." But he hadn't really seen her around campus, not lately, not during his stints out on the Green or between his classes or any of that. Tucker, for the record, was looking pretty good, actually. Well-fed, both in terms of food and in terms of other varieties of feeding. Content. The only thing that seemed to bother him was the part where there was a double wandering around campus and doing un-Tucker-like things. Everything else, the business with his family, had all been deliberately shoved onto the back burner. [Jasper] Put it on the menu! What a brilliant idea. Jasper had to grin toward the natural red head. As far as she was concerned things were going to be okay between them. A silly ol' mutt wasn't going to get in the way because..well..because! Joe was given his thumbs up while she accepted the cup with a pleasant smile, "You should totes add it. Call it a Mo'Joe or something spiffy." Booted feet turned her about once the muffin was claimed and she made a careful skipping toward the black leather chair she'd claimed last time, which was close by that green atrocity. It was a like a little powwow. She was even going to make herself suffer through any and all Hannah had to say in response to Tucker. Even if it was about certain things. And yes, she was kind of inviting herself into that little sit down, boots curling up under her as she sipped at the coffeeflavoredsugarmilk with all manner of delight. Feel free to ignore the whipped cream mustache. [Hannah] She couldn't have. A silent laugh preceded the stretch of a wooly arm, sleeve tugged over hand and used to smush the whipped cream off of Jasper's upper lip. [Nero] Nero would be along shortly, feverishly keying in a response to several messages he had received. Autumn brought with it a noticeable chill in the air, so he had taken precautions in donning a pair of fingerless wool gloves. They paired appropriately with the black shade of his pea coat. It was biting cold to begin with inside the inner workings of a fully functional slaughterhouse, but when the season grew colder, it had a tendency of turning a place like that even colder. He finished with his replies just as soon as he rolled up on Joe's front door. Sliding his mobile back inside his pants pocket, before he made his entrance, pushing the door aside and stepping through—all six foot five inches of himself. His pompadour actively affording him a couple inches more. Styled with a moderate amount of product; considering the vast amounts of wankers who wanted to mess with it. For now, he fought back the urge to order a warmth cup of Earl Grey, and instead perused over the patrons currently in attendance, searching for a particular redhead. Oh, there was a pussycatwhosmelledofcreamandsardines, and some other fellow he couldn't quite recall. All crowded around, ah yes, that very same redhead he was searching for. Casual strides eventually carried him over to her, standing just off the side behind her as she conversed with her acquaintances. No doubt she could sense him somewhere close by.
[Tucker] For now, Tucker found himself with surprisingly little to say. He simply lounged near the girls like a watchful sphinx, lazy and elegant. [Hannah] Hannah twisted at the hip, pulling curled legs up into the chair that nobody loved but her, that poor chair, tucking ballet-flatted toes studded with silver stars under a black-legginged backside. It was par for the course, as would have been Jasper's self-invitation once upon a time. There was no grit of teeth, no flinch as Hannah and Tucker became Hannah, Tucker and Jasper. Just a little residual cautiousness. After a sip at her coffee, and Tucker's open-ended inquiry after her well-being, she shifted gears and put it into semi-social. "It's been... interesting," was her non-committal answer. "I, um... I moved, actually. It's not much of a commute, but it's not walking across campus like it used to be, either. I have to catch a train after my last class, now." That explained her complete absence from what used to be regular nights spent staring up at the sky through tree-limb picture frames on the Green. It was for the best, really, considering how often her quiet place had become Beth and Tucker's... not so quiet place, recently. Don't tell her you've soiled it, Tucker. Don't. And, oh, Jesus. One wave after another hit her, and she had to lower her head, pinch at the bridge of her nose. The first was a slow roll of heat, sweet like tobacco and expensive scotch, dark like chocolate macaroons, red-purple-black like blood. The weight of Nero's energy was her security blanket. And did she ever want to hide in it when the sharp glare of Ash's way-too-much hit her square in the third eye. Ugh. He was like a cold winter's day at noon, blinding white sun overhead and not a pair of sunglasses to be found, because who carries sunglasses after summer is over? So. Much. Sky. Blue. A hand reached up, back, diagonally for its tattooed partner in invitation.
[Ash] Some might argue that teenagers shouldn't drink coffee, but seriously, Ash was tall enough, he needed all those coffee beans to make sure that he couldn't give up his career as a musician in exchange for playing basketball. Yes, there he was -- slinking into the place looking a bit tired, because he kept falling asleep on couches, and in libraries, and though he was young, he was dancing his damn feet off to practice for class. ... plus he was working on a new music piece, and his evening job. He SHOULD'VE spotted the others in there -- and he did, with those crystal eyes thinned in exhaustion -- but rather than being all IN YA FACE, he just kind of lolloped his way along to the counter, to go throw himself at the mercy of Joe (be gentle). "Somethin'. Anythin'. Caffeine. Make it cold so it's easier to drink. Extra sugar." He kind of rolled from side to side, foot to foot, while waiting... which was how he stayed alert and awake while tired. Flipping about while his order was made, he started naming off everybody he saw. "Hey. ... it's Tuckster. Maria. Hero." GODDAMNIT ASH. "... and you." He pointed to Hannah. "You, dance partner, need to practice with me, or I am going to fail, and if I fail, I am going to sneak into your quad and fill it with apples." [Tucker] Ahhh, so miss Hannah was now living off campus. That did explain her absence, where she had once been a regular. "How's it livin' off campus, anyway?" he inquired. "Sooner or later I might wanna start thinkin' about it. Almost through with undergrad, y'know." It was his final semester before he got that bachelor's degree and went immediately back into Shepherd for post-graduate studies. He wouldn't be satisfied, most likely, until he was the second Dr. North. Was that spot Hannah's? Uh. Oops? To be fair, that wasn't the only thing that had happened between witch and cambion at that location, far from it. With Jasper coming to join them, he raised his mug to her, and then to the next two arrivals. Ash and Nero. Ash, of course, was basically his little brother from a harpy mother these days. "What's up?" he asked him. Nero, on the other hand, he only really knew from the night that they had faced the hellhounds and from general campus scuttlebutt. He looked respectable, far more than Tucker did, to be frank. [Ash] Totally withdrawing his facebook friend request to her. Totally. [Hannah] "You know how to get ahold of me, Ash," she managed quietly. Did it seem like she had a migraine, all of a sudden, when that head lifted? "Just tell me where and when. I'll come in from the city to mee you." If I have to. I can't believe I let you bait me with all that self-help inspirey crap. I even hugged you. ... it was awfully sweet, the way you turned pink about it, though. Back to Tucker. "I... we," with a glance that followed her arm all the way out, past her hand, and connected with feral gold. "We live in Wimbledon. It's a nice neighborhood. Trees. Children. Fresh market every Saturday." Hazel returned to cambion blue. "They don't have anywhere that makes coffee like you do, though." Again with the half smile. For him and for Jasper, who deserved another muffin for the concentrated effort she made to be okay with the scene at hand, as far as the empath was concerned. Her only outward reaction to those inward ones was the knowing gleam in one eye... and respected energetic space. "You might like the city better than the suburbs," she suggested, based entirely on what she'd heard from Mackie and what she knew of Beth. [Jasper] Actually the scent was one she had held for some years. Rose musk and amber lingering on the warmth of flesh. He should have been familiar. The cream scent was simply an addition of happy pheromones. The scent of fish was nowhere to be found around the girl who was far more chipper than she had been for some time. There was a secret little twitch when the mention of moving came to pass, but she refused to give it away. If Hannah read through her then she would hardly be surprised. But that was up to the dragon ballerina herself. "Sounds real nice, Hanners." Another sip from her mug was taken, this time the cream licked away before she could be sleeve-cleaned. The swallow ended with a little bit of a perking up as the door opened. Not when Nero came in, however, but at the blond haired dancer that seemed intent on scolding Hannah. Ringed digits gave a little wiggled greeting, though she didn't interrupt the two. Dancing partners? Did she know that? Should she have remembered? There was a lot she'd missed over time. Now she knew, and that's really all that mattered, right? Nero was even given a wave, keeping things civil and whatever was felt behind those prismatic eyes an utter secret. Such a damn cat. Sip. Cue an entirely impassive expression behind colorful prismatics that bled right into the rest of her steadfast expression. A Mona Lisa smile if ever there was one, partially hidden behind the dwindling heap of whipped cream. [Tucker] We? Oh, how those blues traveled deliciously slowly from Hannah to Nero, like he was savoring making the connection. He didn't usually get to make them. Connections were Bethy's thing. He was the one who researched and presented evidence, and she was the one who found solutions. "Well that sounds damn nice," he said, lifting his coffee cup in their direction like a playful salute. "Ah, yeah, well. It ain't gonna be...soon, I don't think, with...her..." The slightly pink-tinged cambion decided to just cover up his conflicting and meandering thoughts on that with a chug of his coffee. [Ash] "Oh, you know." He waved at Tuckster, the equally and other hot pea in the campus pod. Really. Seriously. They should hang out more, because to quote Nicki Minaj concerning campus girls, he ain't even gotta try to put the mac on, he just gotta give me that look, when he give me that look, then the panties comin' off, off, uh. "... coffee stuff. And working. And getting coffee stuff, so I can keep working." Of course, then the kid took a moment to turn and wriggle his fingers over at Jaz, head jerking up in a quick upnod, the universal nonverbal sign for whatup. Attention dirrected back to Hannah, though, and the kid raised his eyebrows again, while he held his arms out. "... how can I contact you? And when?" Would she even pick up? He bet she wouldn't even pick up. "I have work, now, so my schedule's tight." Aw, listen to that accent, he said it like shed-yule. Part of him felt like he should keep on cheesing on her, but just as he was trying to figure out a way to make her scowl, his brain went blank due to being tired... resulting in him lifting a hand to cover his mouth in a yawn. [Jasper] Wave. Upnod. She could take these things. But as she saw the yawn her small figure moved to one side of the oversized leather chair, a ringed hand reaching out to give a little tug at his pants. "Hey Muse, why don't y' sit down before you fall over.." Besides, you're blockin' her view of half the people in the conversation! Not that she was thrilled to see half of that equation, but whatever. It was that bad. More sips of her sugary drink were taken as she leaned on 'her' side of the chair. At five foot nothin', there was plenty of room to be had!
[Nero] Her hand didn't have to search for much longer, for his hand—the one brandishing a skull and cross cutlasses across the back—reach down to take hers. Softly rolling the pad of his thumb over her middle knuckle, it had become a habit of his. A polite nod was issued for everyone who had made an effort in greeting him, including Jasper. He remained silent for the most part, preoccupied by the constant interruption of his mobile vibrating against his leg. He did his best to keep from being a workaholic, but apparently several problems occurred after he left. His phone continued to vibrate, until finally he reached for the gadget to see what was the matter. It was more dire that he realized, so Nero leaned down to whisper against the shell of her ear. "There appears to be an emergency at the Cat in need of my attention." Of course, those whiskey golds of his were already narrowing at Ash. He didn't speak louder than that whisper, but he concluded their closeness with a feathery kiss delivered to the center of her forehead. "I'm not but a stone's throw away, so just give me a call when you're ready to go home." With that said, he stood back up, straightening his posture in the process. Then silently he took his leave of the place, cursing under his breath in thick Romanian. Ah, there it was! The native tongue to his country of origin.
[Hannah] "She's... a lot of energy," Hannah commented, an aside to Tucker, with gentle eyes that understood well how to hide emotion behind a coffee mug. "Like a Little Earthquake. That's what we call her in neoclassical." For the Tori Amos song of the same name. "Good luck." A quiet tease, nothing ominous. Relief washed over her, lowering shoulders, brightening her voice as Nero's hand found its way around hers. It was to be short-lived. There were pale lips against her ear and secrets that weren't really secrets being shared, an understanding gaze up, but then dark eyelashes fluttering closed when not-secrets became a not-goodbye kiss to her forehead. "I won't be long," she promised. Then he was gone. Back into the fray, Fein. Now that she had a hand free, she jabbed it into the air toward Ash. "Give me your phone," she sighed, exchanging another glance with Jasper that meant giggled things no Soup Slut would ever betray.
[Jasper] "Try not to crack too many skulls, pup." Not puppy, no. That was not a word she'd use in his regard likely ever again. But she really wasn't in a mood to call him by his name. It'd take some baby steps. For now? Her attention was back on Ash, waiting to see if he'd join her on that seat! [Ash] Ash seemed a little too surprised at the moment. Hannah seemed about as lovable as a jellyfish (dances pretty, stings you when you try to pet it,) and his bossman seemed like the ladies' choice. Give him a moment to let the internal Oh! ..... OHHHHH I get it, subsided. [Tucker] "Little Earthquake." Tucker repeated it, and smirked. "Yeah, she is, she is. I just don't think she's gonna leap all over the idea of playin' house with me, is she, now?" He was okay with hanging around the dorms a while longer, considering he wasn't going to be going far. Nero's departure earned the man a lazy salute. For now it was just a conglomeration of people fairly younger than himself, save for Hannah, so he just sat quietly and sipped his coffee and thought about apartments.
[Ash] After shaking himself awake, Ash blinked... took out his phone...and then went over to offer it toward he--WAIT. ... he snatched his hand back, grabbed a nearby napkin, balanced the phone on it, and then offered it to her that way. See, no touchy. [Hannah] Look at that! Ash earned himself half a smile for his quick thinking, even if it was a little over-dramatic. She's an empath, not a leper. A few swift swipes and keystrokes later, she'd put her cell phone number in Ash's phone, clever little nickname and everything. She'd filed herself under last name Ugh, first name NoTouch, middle initial E. And then she was pushing his phone right back toward him. She'd let him keep the napkin. Souvenir. "You could have gotten it out of the student directory, but there. That's how you can get ahold of me." And since you work for my whatever-he-is, I'm sure something can be arranged around your work shed-yule. Hannah couldn't help laughing at Tucker's assessment of Beth's... er, domesticity... "Maybe you should kind of... ease her into it. Take her into the city for a weekend. Nobody can resist London at night." Not even Beth Lyons.
[Jasper] That giggle was still the world to her. A little sign that yes, everything was going to be okay. It would take time, but they had plenty of that within their individual species, right? Ash was busy and she wasn't going to pester boy so her glance turned to Tucker. She didn't really know who this 'she' was, but Jaz knew one thing about chicks. "You never know. No one thought I would but..it was nice for a while." For a while, it was the perfect description. Was anything expected to be permanent in the fae's life? In a way she'd rather began accepting that her life was transitional. It kind of had to be, didn't it? Still, the little fae didn't even frown when she spoke, just offered her own half-smile and shrugged before sipping her coffee again. It was so. Damn. Good. [Ash] Girls to DO things with: Jaycee, Hannah. He had their numbers, and he was going to make beautiful music with them. ... literally. No, literally, he had to dance with one and play piano with the other. Accepting the phone back, he pocketed it, before melodramatically nuzzling the part of the napkin where she'd touched, as if she were a celebrity and he were a stalker with an obsession with her. "I'll never forget this," he said, sounding like he was going to cry tears of joy... even as he backed away to the chair, where he sad down. On top of Jaz, apparently. With no shame for being in her lap (those crazy kids!) "... just promise your whatever-he-is that you find me a horrible little prat so he wouldn't murder--" he'd seen Nero's narrowed eyes, but just as he was about to suggest Hannah suggesting Nero not be threatened by him, a bright idea took hold of him. "Wait. Wait, nevermind. Tell him I'm a rising star, and that I'm struggling, and that I need a pay raise." [Tucker] Oh my god there were women giving him advice on how to handle women. Who was he, Ash? He didn't need their advi--maybe he did. Tucker wasn't too cocky to not accept aid when it came his way. "There's an idea. City for the weekend...yeah. Maybe next weekend. While you and your big guy over there spend your day out in the countryside. Jesus. It's like we're all fallin' into some sort of nightmarish domesticity here." That was said with a playful wink because he was full of shit about all of it. Tucker was a LONE WOLF. A CUDDLY BABY TAPIR. Points if you get that reference. Also, that was a sack of crap. Now, Tucker wasn't privy to all the ins and outs of who was doing what with whom and who was doing whom throughout Shepherd University. But he could pick up that there was something going on here, though he had no idea what. Still, he clearly found it entertaining. "Look at you, Ash, gettin' women's numbers left and right."
[Jasper] Oh look! An Ash in the lap! Well, sort of. She'd made enough room that he could have had his own part in the chair buuuuut, nope. Nope, she had a pretty dancer in her lap and that meant one arm went about his waist and that Cheshire grade grin came into play. Delicious coffee, her best friend, and a boy in her lap. This was better than the best birthday she'd ever had. "If he hurts a hair on your head I'll just set his hair on fire." Bigger grin. It didn't look like she was joking all that much. "The raise is all up to you, though."
[Hannah] "Oh, shut up," she laughed, rolling her eyes at the star treatment that napkin got. Her amusement extended to his additional commentary. "You can get your ass kickings and your pay raises the same way all of his people do, you're welcome." Hannah, he hadn't thanked you. The wide-eyed look Hannah shot Jasper was all oh my God, and he uses so much of that fucking pomade... all of London would burn. [Jasper] Hannah got a little wink a that wide-eyed look. All of London.[d] [Tucker] The Great Fire of London 2: Electric Boogaloo. [Jasper] Pump Up the Pompador. [Ash] "We're literally going to study together, is all," he admitted, to Tucker. "These skirts haven't done brung me low yet." Allowing Jaz to hold onto his waist, he smirked down at the fae below him. "... I'm better at fire than you are." After all, he'd set the University on Fire, thanks to Alice. "It's gotta be me." Then, loudly, and obviously, he continued. "BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ME. IF ONLY SOMEONE WOULD TALK HER WHATEVER INTO GIVING ME PAY RAISES AND TREATING ME NICE." Simma down, Ash, we all use our indoor voices in here. [Tucker] "Pipe down, kiddo." Hey, Tucker was off the clock, but he was still an employee. [Hannah] Hannah reached out toward Tucker's nearest hand, stopping just shy of smoothing a barely-there touch past his knuckles and over the back of his hand. The space between her skin and his was a decimal point at best. "We all outgrow these universities, some time," she offered, all but a whisper.
[Jasper] "...Or you could just show him respect, compliment him once in a while -- 'specially his hair, and do a good job. He does give credit where it's do.." Mab's tits, she was talking nice about the man. Hell must have frozen over. Still, she squeeze at Ash's side with that smirk and another sip of coffee. "Well then you can be my fire starter...Since it has to be you." [Ash] "... he just walked out on his bae. The Hell kinda chance do I have, to get a minute of his time?" He then glanced over to Tucker, and then raised his eyebrows, looking genuinely sorry. I ... wait. He was sorry? He was SORRY! Had those soulful blue eyes locked on him, looking apologetic -- "Sorry, Dad." Annnnd there's the other shoe. Patting Jaz, who he sat on, he continued. "... I ... er ... might ... have problems aiming." Aim for the hair, hit him in the face. A problem that many a male porn star had, but with a lot less burning.
[Tucker] Tucker did not know not to touch Hannah. He grinned at her as she gently not-touched his hand. "What, me? Nah. I'm just gonna get a PhD and teach here and live here forever. I'll be like the Albus Dumbledore of this campus, but less cryptic and not the Headmaster. You'll all have to give passwords that are names of swe--hang on, Red." Dad? Tucker actually flipped Ash off for that, wordlessly, before going back to Hannah. "Anyway. I ain't that worried 'bout it. She'll crack someday. She has to. We've made promises." He upturned his hand beneath Hannah's, palm to palm, and gave her a high five, because nobody had fucking warned him. Good job, Tuck. [Ash] Well, there you have it, Hannah. Everything's upside down. ASH is the one you should trust, and TUCKER is the one you have to be careful of. [Jasper] "So long as you hit the general area, it'll be fine." Because so much product! The pats were happily accepted, though her gaze lingered on Hannah and Tucker. There was an actual tension along her usually relaxed shoulders as she just watched the empath. Uh oh? [Ash] The... uh... the coffee shop was so full of tension, you could hear a pin drop? [Hannah] Uh oh. Oh. Oh, Tucker. Hannah's eyes widened, again, but not because she was exchanging wordless giggles with Jasper, or trying to choke down the onslaught of Ash's type A energy. Bright green sparks flew from the connection between cambion and living, breathing spirit, knocking that ugly chair and its occupant over onto their backs. The occupant's cry wasn't surprise, but burn. Tucker's energy tore through her system like hot brimstone, ripping at chakras, turning them upside down and inside out, pulling and pushing until they were all out of order, all misaligned, all... imbalanced. She slid backward in the chair, head hitting a separating wall three feet away with a gut-flopping smack. The tremors set in as she tried to fight it off, the curl, the crawl of black that marred ivory flesh so precious, but it didn't take long for the demon to take hold. Those wide eyes, they went darker than the night outside, darker than the unnatural red-purple that began to leave its mark on the wall behind limp copper. A seizure-like rasp complicated the rise and fall of her chest. Nearby lay the remnants of her mug, little red H face-up. [Tucker] Jesus fucking Christ. Tucker yanked his hand back like Hannah's skin was acid. "Is she okay? Is she okay what the fuck is goin' on?" Don't panic, Tucker. Jasper was springing into action and he held back, not sure if he should approach her or not, his hands in his hair, looking like the world had just been yanked out from under his boots.
[Jasper] Jasper was up and out of her chair in what was less than a second, even if it meant tossing Ash out of it. She couldn't catch the red head to protect her from the wall, but she was quick to pull her sweater sleeves down over her of no ends: hands to avoid flesh contact. She didn't really know what Tucker was, but she could see the evidence of consequences to contact and drew in a breath. "Don't touch her! Don't ever fucking touch her!" A protective sort of growl came from the usually jovial girl as she crouched beside her red headed best friend. Careful and covered hands moved to rest against Hannah's shoulder as she looked her over. Should she move her? Should she not? With a slow inhale and setting of shoulders, she bit at her lip. "...she hit her head...her breathing's funny..." Brows knitted as she waved a hand infront of her face to see if she was conscious beind those not-Hannah-eyes. "...Hanners?" She noticed the wall and winced. "..Call Nero." She didn't know what else to do. The scent of blood had her a bit dizzied in a rather unfavorable way but she refused to leave Hannah's side. This wasn't Brigid's and she couldn't call on the twins. And there was no other family of Hannah's to call for either.
[Tucker] Well now he just looked like he'd been shot. [Ash] Okay, so, Ash was in shock! Give the boy some credit -- he didn't know exactly how to deal with Hannah being tossed aside as if this were some bad indie horror flick -- which is why Jaz leapt out from behind Ash, rushing over to help her best friend. Hey, it wasn't so bad when Ash had touched her briefly; but then again, his mind had been on dance, and rather than giving off emotions he gave off choregraphy at the time, as perfect as the ticking gears of a pocket watch. Stunned, he followed soon after, bending down over the girl with Jaz, and only briefly glancing up at Tucker. "... it's gonna be alright, mate," he answered with a nod... followed soon by a snap of his fingers. "Wait. Doesn't Shepherd have an infirmary?"
[Hannah] Mmm, dragon's blood. Remember that smell, Jasper? [Jasper] Fuck this helpless feeling. "..We're going to need to get her somewhere. But not a hospital. " Blink blink, bless you Ash she could have kissed you. "Yeah. That..maybe there..." If no one else called the big dumb wolf she was going to have to, wasn't she?
[Tucker] "Nero. Give me a phone with his number. I'll call him." Where had all that jovial, casual nature gone? It was locked inside something stiff and formal and frozen. "Unless, of course, you'd rather I not." [Jasper] Bless you too, Tucker. [Ash] "... do any of you have cars," asked Ash, as he looked around for something. Anything. A coat, a blanket, his own shirt -- he'd pick one and then set about trying to wrap Hannah up, so that if she had to be carried out by someone other than her wolf, they wouldn't do more of the touching. [Tucker] "No, but I can guarantee Nero does." Tucker held his hand out for a phone that might have his number in it, because the cambion sure as shit did not have it. He didn't even look at Jasper. Or at anyone, actually. "Here. I'll make the call." His voice was lead. He was still on full lockdown. [Jasper] "...No. But...I have something faster. Maybe." Could Hannah handle the roads in her condition. Jasper wasn't sure. She also wasn't sure that they should wait for Nero and a car. "..I'll call him. Someone..just..watch her. Don't touch. Just watch..." It wasn't that she didn't trust Tucker to talk to Nero. It's that she was going to protect him from what as going to be a likely very ragey werewolf. Except Tucker now had a phone! She still texted to make sure Mr. Busy Wolf answered,. but otherwise remained by Hannah as she crawled back over. "...I could take her through the Roads. It's faster than driving but..I'm not sure if the cold would shock her system.."
[Nero] So, Ash doesn't have the number of his employer? [Ash] I dunno, does Nero give out his number to people directly? [Nero] IF THEY WORK FOR HIM! [Ash] BUT HIS PHONE IS RINGING OFF THE HOOK, I MEAN, HE MIGHT WANNA JUST NOT GIVE IT OUT BECAUSE ITS A PERSONAL LINE AND HE DIDN'T WANT THEM TO BE BUGGING HIM, AND Ash was currently handing over his cell phone to Tucker, because apparently he had his number. I dunno. I'm going with Tucker. Because Jaz, you just volunteered to watch her by running in first. That's how it goes in first aid, you know. You start CPR and you yell at someone else to call 911, or whatever the British equivalent of 911 is. [Tucker] Tucker got the phone. The cambion found the number. Dialed. Spoke. "This is Tucker North. I work at Joe's. Hannah...she's...she's h-had some sort of accident." The tremble in his voice betrayed him. He had done something wrong and he didn't even know what the fuck he had done wrong. He touched her. Don't touch her. He rolled his shoulders like he could feel the burn of the crucifix between them all over again. He remembered Freya's wound. "I think we're gonna try to get her to Shepherd's infirmary." [Ash] Guess that left Ash watching her while everybody played with their phones. Yes, he was still wrapping her up. I'm saying he had a coat, that's what he's using. "... I could go with you, and keep her warm." [Jasper] "...That..might work." Three, could she handle three people including herself? Jasper swallowed. It didn't matter what it did to her so long as Hannah was okay. And Ash too. Drawing in a breath, the little cait sidhe nodded with a light shudder. There was going to either be a very proud or very pissed off Lucifer to face later on. "We need to see if we can move her first. Get...get something to cover your hands. Any skin that will make contact.." Meanwhile Jasper's phone went off with a quick chime of Who let the dogs out as she got a certain text from a certain wolf. And of course there was brief texting back before she was shoving her phone back in her pocket and shuffling toward Hannah. [Tucker] Tucker was silent as he handed the phone back to Ash. "I'll..." No, you won't do anything, because you've already done enough. His jaw was set, his eyes were dull. "I'll...just..." Look for the nearest exit like a fucking coward? No. He'd clean the blood on the wall. That's what he'd do, and he slipped behind the counter to get something to clean it up with. A wet rag should do the trick.
[Ash] "... she's in my coat, Maria. I'll be careful." Ash... Ash, awful, terrible Ash, firestarter Lord of Flames, nicknamed both 'Fetus' and 'Muse,' ... Ash seemed to be a man of action, taking his phone back from Tucker, crystal blue eyes piercing him like an arrow. "... you didn't know. It's not your fault." That said, the platinum haired boy moved over to Hannah, first wrapping his arms around her waist to pull her up and onto him in a hug. ... in a hug that was considerably less precious than the last one. To any outsider, it might look like he was trying to do something weird to her, until he took one of her coat-covered arms, and used it to lift her up and onto his back into a fireman's carry. Of course, he didn't touch her skin, and made sure they weren't touching at all as best he could, while he stood up and held her on his shoulders, the way he'd held dozens of other girls over his head. ... it's just that ... they were dancing, and this was much, much, different.
[Jasper] "..You'll take a deep breath. Do what you gotta do here. And then meet us at the infirmary on campus. Okay?" She glanced toward Tucker, frowning. He probably didn't even know what happened and she had no luxury of time to explain. At least not now. "We'll talk later." Then she glanced to Ash, "Mind her head. And uh..her back." In case anything was broken? Sure. Now came the hard part. She took another breath and glanced around. "Outside." There just wasn't enough shadow to go pulling all of them in. The door was approached and moved through quickly before she held it open for Ash and prone Miss Hannah. Once they were out? She gave a gentle look to Tucker then let the door close. "So. I've...never done this with this many people. I need you to listen close. Real close. I'm going to hold onto Hannah's hand. You're going to hold onto her and don't let go for shit. It's going to be cold. We're walking into fuckin' shadows. No light. No warmth. Just keep hold of her, I'll do the rest and get us all there. Ignore everything else but me. Shit likes to lurk about and fuck around sometimes. We have to be fast. Longer we're in, colder we're gunna get." It felt like she was almost rambling, largely out of worry and adrenaline. Jasper looked straight up concerned and barely able to take her eyes off the prone red head. All those eyes kept pleading was a wordless 'don't leave me' toward her empathic friend. "...Ready t' take a walk with me, Muse?"
[Tucker] Tucker saw nothing and said nothing. He had his back to the group, facing the wall. He'd heard enough the second Jasper told him not to touch her. The explanation was sorely needed, because as it stood right now, he was convinced that all that his double had said to him and about him was true. While the others did what they did, Tucker did what he did, scrubbed the wall and clenched his teeth so hard his jaw hurt. [Ash] "... just hurry up." Oh, there you are, Ash. No, he wasn't upset! Just impatient! The timing of treatment in relation to an injury was important. A quick glance was given back toward Tucker. Y... yeah. He'd be back. Probably to talk to him if possible. [Jasper] Time to go! Jasper took a careful hold of Hannah's hand with a sweater barrier before leading them forward. "Deep breaths." Where Ash might have expected them to walk into and stop at the wall? Their very steps and figures were swallowed with each one they took. The light disappeared as well the deeper they went. The cold nipped at any exposed flesh, which didn't bother Jasper, and she trusted in Ash to keep their friend warm. As much as she wanted to run she didn't want to lose contact, and thus her gait was kept at as quick a pace as she could feel Ash could handle. Thankfully as a dancer that was likely pretty spry! There was nothing for Ash to see but absolute darkness, nothing for him to make guess work at out the smaller girl lead them through to their destination. Leading three was far more difficult than just leading herself but she never slowed and refused to falter. It would feel like mere seconds before they seemed to just burst back into the world. Thankfully it was more like stepping. Right into the entry of the infirmary where Jaz simply pointed and then slumped against the wall with a heavy exhale and shiver. [Ash] To his credit, Ash seemed very much like a Big Damn Hero as he followed after Jaz with Hannah around his shoulders. If he were holding her, it would be murder on his back, but by bearing her on his shoulders (plus she was petite) he ensured that he could carry her along the whole way. No tripping, no slowing, no loss of balance; he could dance with a book on his head if he wanted to, though he'd insult you if you suggested it. Despite the biting cold, Ash seemed to keep warm. ... he kept her warm, raising her temperature just enough, frightened enough for her well-being to not screw it up and give her a temperature. By the time Jaz was slumping against the wall, Ash carried Hannah in the rest of the way, likely telling his story to whoever would be there and attending. Accidentally touched (Tucker's name withheld,) rocketed back, hit her head, etc.
|
|
Carley
VT:L Adventure Guide
Posts: 146
writes for: Alexander "Alex" Kearny (amoribundusher)
writes for: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours)
writes for: Hyacinth "Cinthie" Griswold (kerosenebridges)
writes for: Chelsea "Mackie" McIntyre (ficklefauna)
writes for: Miriam "Mira" Roth (ignafatua)
writes for: Ryan Malone (quicksilverwit)
|
Post by Carley on Oct 9, 2015 3:46:34 GMT -8
They come in twos. You come in twos. You and you.Tucker's boots were surprisingly quiet, considering they were making their way through dying leaves and grass. All the noise was in his head instead, that racket, that incessant chattering. It was starting to take the form of whispers now, actual whispers that were making him wonder if he was losing his fucking mind. He could never make out what they were saying. He was sure it wasn't particularly flattering. At least it only came on when the rage got to be too much, an auditory accompaniment to the prickling in his shoulders.
He had never meant to hurt Hannah, and watching her collapse like that and hit her head on the wall at Joe's was not his idea of a good time. It was all from a high-five. If he could take it back, he would. And the way that Jasper had yelled at him not to ever touch Hannah...well, of course it was because he was a monster, wasn't it? But the more he thought about that, the more he wondered what being a monster entailed, and by the time the clock struck one in the morning, he knew what he had to do. He had to put down the monster. That would show Jasper. That would show all of them, wouldn't it?
You ought to be checking in at the infirmary, he told himself. You're losing your grip. You can't do this. You have a meeting with the Headmaster tomorrow. You have to keep it together for the people you care about. Maybe he and Freya were more alike than he knew.
He should have gone, yes. But instead he stalked the grounds like a hungry animal until he found what he was looking for.
He was sitting on the table on the Green. The one that belonged to Beth and Tucker, in a way, the place where he had consoled her about Doc's death and first clumsily confessed his love for her. Since then, he had shared so much else with her here, everything from books of prophecies to frenzied lovemaking and back again. And now Tucker's double was perched there, gloved fingers slipping along the beads of his rosary. The cambion tried to shrink back into the trees, but it was too late. He'd been spotted.
Tucker wasn't sure which one of them moved first. The version of himself that was all wrong, the one with short hair and a clean-shaven face and black clothes and holy objects in his hands, came running, but Tucker was already there. There were no words wasted, because the sight of that rosary had him enraged, and all he could see was the horrible, oozing wound that his sister had sported until last night when she had finally caved and fed off Mira. He struck first. A balled-up fist aiming for his double's jaw. It struck true, and the retort, the crucifix coming his way, was successfully blocked by the faux leather of his coat. Tucker snarled. He could feel his mouth changing, teeth contorting into needle-spikes, too many of them. Far too many of them. He bit down on his double's wrist until he could taste blood spurting into his mouth and the rosary dropped harmlessly onto the ground.
The double reeled. Tucker didn't have to ask to know what was up with that blade that was procured from somewhere within the folds of the black robe. He could extrapolate just fine that it was a blessed weapon. He dodged, ducked away quickly, but not quickly enough. It sliced through his shirt and nicked him just below his ribcage, but even a nick with that blade brought the scent of charred flesh and drew an inhuman scream from the cambion. The twist of his body could at least serve an additional purpose, though, and Tucker stomped the rosary into the ground beneath his boot. He had made a promise to Freya, after all, to destroy it.
Tucker brought his knee up. He was fighting on pure instinct and adrenaline, still alive with the sick-sweet burn of the fear and the shame that had shot through him the second Hannah Fein hit the floor at Joe's. His knee connected with his double's midsection. Once, twice, three times, until the holy blade flashing in his peripheral vision caught his attention. Not a moment too soon. It swiped so close to his left eye he thought for sure he'd been hit, but no. Still, his disoriented pause was enough for his double to bring the blade in again. This time, it hit true, wedging itself just above Tucker's left clavicle. Again, the smell of charred flesh, a scream of agony. The blade was left there to smolder.
He was sure he was dying. The pain was unbearable. Tucker dropped to all fours, digging fingers into the grass, careful not to touch the crucifix for all the fucking good that would have done. A hand slid into his hair and pulled, and he was forced to look up into his own face.
"Monster."
Tucker never did figure out which one of them said that. They shared the same accent, the same timbre. But it did something to him, pulled just a bit more strength out of him. The holy blade was pulled from his flesh, though just touching it made his fingers and palm burn. He didn't care. His double would never see this coming. The bloody blade was twirled once, and then stabbed between his double's ribs, right where he knew the heart was located. "You're still a half-demon, ain't ya?" he grit out between clenched teeth.
He watched his double bleed. Watched inky black blood spew from the wound, drip from his mouth. Smelled the char of flesh that wasn't his own. Dimly he became aware of the wings that he had grown at some point, though they hung limp and ungainly against his back as the pain continued to rip through him. Dispassionate on the outside and a wreck on the inside, Tucker watched himself die.
It was only when his double had taken his last breath that Tucker's body tried to give out on him. He reeled, caught himself on the table's edge, vomited coffee and muffin into the grass. At least he knew what he needed to do to recover. Freya's ordeal had taught him that much. Feed off somebody close. Sometimes he felt bad for Beth, he really did. Then again, she had chosen this as much as he had.
He found his phone in his pocket and sent two texts.
To: frey-frey He's dead and I'm keeping his rosary. We can destroy it together.
To: Bethy I think I killed my double. Hurt bad, need to feed, I'm sorry. Holy wounds. Coming over.
Somehow he made his way into Turner Hall. Somehow he made his way to 1-E. It was a groggy shapeshifter who answered the door in a too-big shirt and no pants, and she took one look at him and all but shoved him inside. By the time he was dragged to Beth's bedroom door, he was half-conscious. All he knew was the taste of bile in his mouth, the ringing in his ears, the fire-hot agony coursing through his body, the familiar energy pull of the witch who was Earth made flesh, and the satisfaction of his kill.
You come in twos. You and you. Kill your double.
|
|
Carley
VT:L Adventure Guide
Posts: 146
writes for: Alexander "Alex" Kearny (amoribundusher)
writes for: Tucker North (hesitantlyyours)
writes for: Hyacinth "Cinthie" Griswold (kerosenebridges)
writes for: Chelsea "Mackie" McIntyre (ficklefauna)
writes for: Miriam "Mira" Roth (ignafatua)
writes for: Ryan Malone (quicksilverwit)
|
Post by Carley on Nov 3, 2015 12:42:25 GMT -8
"So, you finally came around, did you?" It was mid-afternoon, and the rain outside the little cafe on the Thames was frigid. Tucker's coat, draped over the back of his chair, was spattered with it. At least he had a cup of coffee to warm him up, though quite frankly it wasn't half as good as what he usually made at Joe's. The fact that he was staring at his father's face through the steam might have been part of the problem.
"Suppose you could say that," he replied, eyeing the man across from him. Sebastian Moreau hadn't seemed surprised in the slightest when he'd gotten the phone call from his son. Tucker assumed that Freya had told him, at first, but now he wondered if his assumption was wrong. If he had just somehow known his flesh and blood would be looking for him.
"I'm glad, boy. You can't help what you are. You can only choose whether to nurture it or ignore it. Look at your sister. Look at how she's embraced her darkness and made it her own." Sebastian had clever hands, hands like Tucker's, and he noticed the way they moved when he spoke.
"Yeah, well, with all due respect for my sister, she got herself kicked outta Auburn for embracin' her darkness," he muttered, looking down to take a bite of his pastry. "I don't plan on goin' quite that far. But let's just say that I've seen the light, yeah?" In the form of his double. His pious, fanatical double that had utterly rejected the demonic side of his bloodline. If he let himself become that...
Sebastian laughed, and it was a warm, rich sound. Despite Tucker's misgivings, it made him smile, though wanly. "Seeing the light? What a choice of words, boy." The laughter cut off abruptly. "Very well. Your training begins today."
"I ain't done." Tucker raised his hand to cut his father off. "I got some...stipulations, as it were. I'm only lettin' myself train under your metaphorical and literal wing if you agree to 'em. Got it?"
He could tell Sebastian was trying not to laugh again. "Go on."
"One," he began. "I ain't killin' anything that don't deserve it."
"Fair enough," said Sebastian.
"Two. I get to set my limits and boundaries. Not you."
"I reserve the right to encourage you to push your boundaries," Sebastian said. "But you can choose to say no. We'll call it...a safeword, perhaps?"
Tucker rolled his eyes, but continued. "And three. I made promises to the woman I love, and I'm gonna keep 'em. I ain't fuckin' anyone who ain't her, except on eight very specific days of the year. So if your idea of trainin' me is gonna be throwin' me into a room of horny women and seein' how I handle drownin' in pussy, that ain't gonna happen."
"Ah, yes. The Lyons witch." Sebastian frowned slightly. "Very well, very well, but I really must encourage you to reconsider--"
Tucker cut him off. "You ain't encouragin' me to reconsider anything. Take the deal or leave it, Daddy dearest, but I ain't compromisin'. Especially not on stipulation number three. You get me?"
Sebastian appeared to consider this offer a moment, lost in the steam of his tea. The silence lasted longer than Tucker would have liked, until he finally said, "I accept the deal. You have your mother's hard head, boy."
"My name is Tucker. Quit callin' me that."
"Very well, Tucker. Very well."
|
|