His feet loudly thudded on top of those creaky basement steps that made up from old wood that bent and almost threatened to collapse under his weight, even though he wasn’t by any means heavy and muscular- this particular haven was just old, unfinished and unloved, and Leo wasn’t about to suddenly give it all the love and attention it needed. After all, he hadn’t seen fit to stay, not with a guest who deserved all the comfort his hard-earned money could buy, and certainly hadn’t asked to live among buckets of paint and plaster and old rolls of wallpaper, still wrapped in plastic. It was too much work, and these sweet summer nights were far too short to even get started.
For no reason at all, Leo turned around, casting steely eyes at the lone box in the basement aglow in the soft light of a single light bulb, just large enough to hold one Kindred. He didn’t have much heart left, but Leo did care. This particular Kindred had brought him into this world, and very well could take him right out of it again, but it wasn’t fear that made him keep his Sire close. But the concept of duty as a whole was probably lost on the younger Kindred of the city.
חלומות מתוקים, זקן. His words didn't echo through the room like he’d expected, but the once foreign syllables of his Sire’s mother tongue still rolled over his tongue with ease, and for a fleeting second, even this crappy old place in Flushing felt like home sweet home. Abijah hadn’t stirred in decades and Leo had given up hope that he ever would, but he still headed down into the basement most nights; insofar that anything he did could be considered a ritual, this was among the quietest and most harmless of them all, but the young Malkavian's arrival had quietly derailed it all the same. They both needed time. To get to know a stranger, time to get used to all the quiet spaces in between, and time to get used to secrets that went mostly unspoken.
But tonight, it hadn't seemed like a big deal. He'd taken a shower, and instead of donning a variation of his daily armor - the impeccable suit, always that suit - picked up an old pair of joggers and lazily pulled a pair of socks on his feet. With his hair still wet and surprisingly bare-chested, and overstayed his welcome - triple-checking chains, carefully wiping dust off his Sire's face, and pulling an already straight shirt straighter. He lingered, until enough was damn well enough. Brusquely, he turned around, and pawed at the half-painted door in front of him, one that still boasted a red layer under a newer, but already cracking and peeling layer of now dirty white paint, one of many projects around the place.
And then the phone rang, jarring a sleepy house awake with a loud, mechanical rattle that shook the wobbly table it stood on. Leo, with his hand on the horn, remembered to call out to Julian wherever he was - I got it - and then put the horn to his ear. "Ye-" Barely a second in, and he was already interrupted already by a voice, one he'd learned to pick out in the noisiest of crowds. It was a low one, with the sharp sounds of a foreign drawl that he, by all means, ought to have lost years ago. But Josquin had always been stubborn, and kept a tight reign on the harsh h's and ch's that made the Dutch language sound more like an illness of the throat rather than a proper language.
And now he was right there on the phone, and the vice-like grip on Leo's heart tightened ever so slightly, even if his brain failed to register the Dutch in his voice at first. Dutch words had been spoken, alright. But he hadn't spoken it in years, save for the occasional lazy tourist who just didn't try, and boy, had he learned to hate that particular sort rather quickly.
"What-' His brain was flashing a giant error sign, and he impatiently shook his shoulder in an attempt to let a ticklish drop of water roll down his scarred back. The voice repeated its query, less patiently this time, which gave him a few more seconds to allow recognition kick in, and then the words finally made sense. More or less, anyhow. Give it a few more days and he'd be fluent again, but right now, he just needed to make it through this conversation.
"Leon? Ben je daar?" Josquin was almost yelling at this point, almost as if he too, was calling from a phone that ought to be in an museum. Or he was impatient. Angry. Anxious. Sad. Who the fuck knew. Leo had lost touch with his wavelength years ago.
And he wasn't aware of that defeated sigh that escaped him, only that the plastic in his hands was slowly starting to crack. "Yeah. Ja. Ik ben hier." His h's were harsher, almost sounded like g's, but it was what it was. "Wat is er aan de hand?" More static on the line. More water rolled down his back and pooled down at a loose elastic waistband.
"Een kleine worm heeft me gezegd me dat ze jouw appartement aan het inpakken zijn."
Ah yes, the worm. The network. Auspex. A retainer. A blood doll. An informant. Leo had never figured out which one exactly it was. "Yeah," he said instead, and the plastic squeaked in his hands.
"Oh. I see." There it was, that nearly flawless Chicagoan accent that could fool the most of native in the city, save for its harsh h's and ch's, but it also sounded almost weak, pathetic and needy; Leo wondered if he'd always sounded this way, or if it was his lack of humanity twisting into something it wasn't. But it'd been enough; for a brief second, hope fluttered in that dead heart of his all the same. And then he squashed it, and the vice around his heart grew thorns.
"Perqué?" There was the vaguest hint of restraint in his voice. A lone wet curl fell in front of his eyes, and he shook his head. More curls cascaded, and Leo finally ran a hand through his hair.
"Me mancas. And t'aimi." All Leo heard was needy. Whiny. Pathetic. But no matter how much he wished he didn't, a small part of him ate it up, and hope helplessly fluttered its wings.
"Yeah." His voice was thick there, swimming with feelings he once thought lost. It was exactly what he'd needed to hear years ago, before he'd been unceremoniously exiled to fucking-nowhere, France, but it also was too much, too late. "Jos-" But he was interrupted again, and he rolled his eyes at the Margaret Keane copy on the wall. Alright, if this was how Jos wanted to play it [...] well, the kindest thing was probably to let him finish, but Leo wasn't sure if he owed him that much. "That's not good enough, Jos."
"Three centuries." Leo could hear the fury in his own voice, and swallowed it down, down and down as the other man finally fell silent. "You said I was your sanity, and I stayed for three centuries. But when I needed a flicker of your humanity, you threw me away after [...] what was it, five years?" Fucking gossip around this town, or fucking gossip fucking anywhere, for that matter. This was about Julian. Or more likely, this was about him starting his own life, away from Jos, who'd probably expected the distance between them to be enough for him to shrivel up and die. Oops. Sorry. He'd just completely forgotten to do that, his bad.
"So I'd personally start with a sorry, and then I'd say I hope you're happy, and I hope you're doing better. To which I'd say 'I heard you, none of your business, and fuck you. Don't call me back until you can say that, and that's really the least you could do." Leo waited to hear the faintest, vaguest 'uh uhs', heard nothing, and then the horn cracked in his hand. "After thirteen fucking years without a fucking word."
He lowered the horn - no, he actually smashed it into that shitty, wobbly table and a mess of wood, plastic, and wiring crashed to the floor.