Julian Blackwood (synapticstatic) wrote in nybynightic, @ 2020-09-22 07:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | activity type: log/thread, character: julian blackwood, character: micah lucciano |
Which thinking of Dorian—
“Now that you’ve taken his prize away from him, you do realize his focus is going to shift completely to you right?”
Because Julian knew Dorian wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble he had simply to slink back to Chicago with his tail tucked between his legs. Not when he still believed he had gotten away with the murder part. He’d be looking for payback while also trying to discover what corner of New York it was that Julian was hiding in. Or being hidden in if Dorian believed something had happened to him.
Micah was fully aware of the way Dorian Valatieri operated. The Ventrue were always an entitled lot. But Dorian was the very worst of them, without the grace of a leader but replete in the ugliness of his obsessive, possessive qualities. Appearing at his event as he had was a sure way to piss Dorian off—as had been Micah’s full intention—but there was no doubt that it was still far from being able to convince Dorian that he had no place here.
He shifted, his arm snaking over Julian’s shoulder to the nape of his neck, squeezing slightly. He was lying half propped up against two pillows, eyes on his phone screen that he had reluctantly picked up again after their earlier exertions in bed. If there was anything he disliked about becoming Primogen, it was the fact that everyone suddenly figured that their problems were his now to deal with. “There’s nothing that he could get up to here that would threaten me at all—he’s a fool for even trying.”
No, without Julian, there was nothing that Dorian could learn about Micah that he could use against him. Which was likely why he was still so desperately trying to get Julian to actually answer the phone again. And why the Malkavian had turned it off and taken the SIM card out in case Dorian actually got smart enough to try and track him down. He supposed he could have had Connie make it so it wasn’t possible, but it had just been as easy to switch phones and hang on to the old until they were ready for Dorian to find him.
“He can’t exactly threaten you,” Julian started, squirming under Micah’s hold only because he knew keeping his secret any longer wasn’t going to do him any good. And he was fully prepared for Micah to push him away once he told him. “But he does have something on me.”
That did get Micah to pause, his fingers stilling against Julian’s skin. Looking up from his phone with nothing on his face to give the slightest clue as to what he was thinking. Even if it was clear that Julian had his full attention now.
“And what would that be?”
Julian stared down Micah for a moment before he answered even though he knew that face wouldn’t give anything away. The younger Kindred couldn’t help but wonder if this was it. If he’d become as fearful of him as Dorian had after it had happened even if the Blood Bond had kept from being able to do so. Micah had no such safety against him and yet Julian knew that Micah did not give in to such petty fears as easily as Dorian.
It still didn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t be tossed aside. Or that Micah wouldn’t use the information against him.
“I diableritize my sire.”
They were lying mere inches away from each other. And at this distance, it wouldn’t have been difficult to pick up the minute softening in Micah’s features, the untensing of his muscles at hearing those words—perhaps contrary to expectations. In the kindred world, what Julian was talking about was taboo. Something you couldn’t bring up at social gatherings for smalltalk certainly. But Micah simply stared at Julian’s face for a moment longer.
“Mmm.” The single-note hum of indulgence, of I acknowledge that you thought this was a big deal, but. “And?”
“And?” Julian couldn’t help but parrot back as he looked at Micah. This really didn’t bother him at all? Julian’s brow furrowed as he looked at him and tried to puzzle it all out. He supposed considering the plotting and planning they had done thus far should have clued him in that it wouldn’t bother the Ventrue and yet the Malk was still thrown by Micah’s easy acceptance of it.
“And—I ate my sire, Micah,” he repeated as he tried to wrap his mind around it not bothering Micah.
This time, there was a significant hint of amusement in his tone as Micah returned to looking at his phone and his fingers slipped through Julian’s blond hair, resuming the soft kneading of the back of the Malkavian’s neck. “I heard you the first time.”
It was clear from his posture that Micah considered this to be not quite the ground-shattering revelation that Julian thought it would be. “Did you honestly think that it was some great secret? A young Malkavian like you being capable of the things you did for the Sheriff?”
Kindred circles weren’t all that big. And if you were someone at the top like Micah was, with the wealth of informants and resources that he had, it wasn’t difficult to add two and two together. In some ways, it was always going to be mere speculation. There wasn’t any proof. Julian wasn’t that sloppy. But it was enough to paint the picture for most of the Kindred that were smart enough to pay attention to what happened around them.
When it became clear that not only was Micah not going to pull away from him but continued to touch him, Julian melted back down against him. No, he hadn’t thought it some great secret. He had figured that the Sheriff had figured it out and was why he had asked him to do what he did. Offered up the trade that he had. And he knew the older Malkavians he stayed with at times knew the black mark on his aura for what it was.
Julian had just expected more of a reaction. To lose this because he had in the past. To go back to not knowing the touch of another.
“Not so much the secret, but the fear. Dorian became afraid I’d do it again after it happened. Especially given my reliance on Kindred vitae, one that he reinforced, that made him fear letting me be that close to him ever again.”
Micah did not, as a matter of habit, routinely examine his motivations and reasons for the actions he took. He was governed largely by a sense of necessity that only he understood and that was perhaps also largely guided by his business motivations. But it wasn’t difficult to see that Julian wasn’t a liability to him at this stage, the Malkavian was also a definite departure from his usual methods.
His hand slipped to the angle of Julian’s jaw, turning Julian to him so he could examine the look on that face. “Well, are you?” With the infinite patience that could only come from centuries of experience and confidence in his own power. “Going to do it again?”
Once the answer would have automatically been no. It wasn’t as if it had been a calculated and planned thing on his part when he had done it to Rusty. It had been fueled by rage and a need to see the other Kindred pay. And oh how he had broken apart into some many pieces to be put back together again after it happened. It had been like being reborn into this life all over again. All of it was reason for Dorian to never have anything to fear from Julian. Not until now.
Looking back and meeting Micah’s gaze, Julian ran his tongue over his bottom lip before he answered. “I'd be lying if I said the thought wasn’t there.” He realized that only to Micah would he voice such a thing. “But it would be almost poetic wouldn’t it, if in the end that’s how Dorian goes?”
Micah let his hand drop from Julian’s chin, his expression thoughtful as he eyed Julian. What would Dorian say, if he could see his toy now?
“How so?”
“After he saw what had become of Rusty he feared it. From then on he’d flinch away from me. Only ever fed me from the wrist when he absolutely had to. All but threw me away except for the information I could provide him but never allowing me any freedom to seek comfort elsewhere.” Dorian had certainly made a mistake in pushing Julian away. In discarding what had once been a loyal toy who would have done anything for him. Now though there was no leash holding Julian back and he very much wanted to see Dorian suffer.
His fingers trail over Micah’s chest as he continued to explain. “I think it’s that thought of a slow final death. Of feeling it slowly be drained out of him that he fears the most. So many other ways are too quick.” Julian leaned up and brushed his lips over the Ventrue’s jaw. “I don’t want it to be quick for him.”
It wasn’t something that Micah would have expected from Julian necessarily. The Malkavian was broken in many ways, but he had never struck Micah as the particularly vengeful sort.
Micah stayed still, allowing their lips to meet, but nothing more. There was another question, far more pressing, that remained in his mind. “Because he abandoned you?”
Julian’s brighter blue eyes meet Micah’s as he actually considered the question before he answered. It was that and more. “Part of the reason, yes. The other because it was his job to protect me and he didn’t. But the abandonment while still hanging on to me—” The Malkavian settled back for a moment as he tried to put what he felt into words that Micah might understand. “It’s the being tossed aside, the watching him flinch away from me, and yet still feeling completely and utterly devoted to him and willing to do anything for him because he kept me fucking blood bonded to him while at the same time I was screaming inside and dying a little bit more each time he’d tell me to jump and I’d do it only to ignored after. I adored him because of the bond and despite myself and he just—”
He gave a shake of his head before he brought his gaze up to Micah’s once more. “How does it go? Despite all my rage I’m still a rat in a cage? I don’t mind being a kept pet but I do mine being one who is tossed outside because it bit someone.”
Micah had never bothered with blood bonds; he’d always felt that they were too cumbersome, too restrictive. He had ghouls and he had Kindred who willingly volunteered their service to him because of the protection and the influence he could give them in return. There had never been a need to tie anyone down by his side so completely before—he didn’t expect that there would be any need in the future either.
Lifting Julian’s chin with his thumb and index, Micah impressed upon the Malkavian his words with a mix of amusement and curiosity. “I’ve never seen the point of domesticating the things I like. I much prefer them—” A pointed smirk. “Wild.”
That smirk told Julian that he’d never have to worry about Micah trying to put him on a leash like Dorian had. The fact that he didn’t care about what he had done to Rusty also told him that Micah wouldn’t care if he bit every now and then—as long as it wasn’t his hand he was biting.
“That’s how I’d like to stay. I refuse to go back on to Dorian’s leash.” Especially after he worked so hard to get off of it.
Micah’s grin widened, full of teeth, running his palm down Julian’s spine to the small of his back. “Then we get rid of the leash and the one holding it.” Like it was just that simple.
If the Malkavian could have purred he would have—not just at the hand running down his back but the words that went with it. Still, there was a shiver of pleasure that ran through him and he pressed in closer to Micah. “Good.” He grinned back. All this hiding, all this avoiding Dorian would soon be worth it.