Who: Adair and Zachary What: Learning old truths Where: Adair's trailer When: After-hours Status: ALMOST done Rating: PG-13
Darkness was settling over the Carnival and with its arrival, all the warmth of day disappeared. Zachary had pulled a hoodie over his sleeveless shirt half an hour ago, the air cooling down too quickly even for him, who was naturally hot blooded. He was on his way to Adair's trailer, texting a quick message to the other important woman in his life as he went; his feet already knew the way to the redhead's place, he had no need for his eyes.
Miss u 2 baby. How was work? 1st day on the job 4 me. Went well. I love you.
Zach wasn't telling his fiancee any lies. He'd stubbornly insisted on earning his keep, and his first day taking entrance fees had been a success. The work wasn't all that exciting and he could do with something a little more challenging, but everyone had to start somewhere and he didn't want to know about receiving any kind of special treatment just because he'd grown up at the Carnival. He was just happy that he could contribute in some way, however small.
He put his cellphone in the front pocket of his jeans and ran a hand through his hair as he took the last few steps towards Adair's trailer. Even though he knew the woman probably wouldn't mind him walking in unannounced (well, semi-unannounced; she was expecting him) he knocked before entering, anyway.
"Hey," Zach gave her a half-smile, "you wanted to see me?"
Adair had been busy that night, even moreso than usual. With the plans she had determined herself to following the close of the carnivale, there was also the usual odds and ends that needed to be taken care of. A surprisingly high number of guest complaints (mostly mundane things such as prices and why the games were rigged) bogged the majority of her night, as well as a handful of 'citizens' who were interested in joining along with their 'merry band'. Thankfully the late-comers could be delegated to those greatly-appreciated individuals who often helped the proprietress out.
And the reason why she'd chosen to duck into her trailer a bit early was as clear to Zachary as a sudden kiss. The atmosphere in Adair's trailer was absolutely saturated with the smell of oatmeal, cinnamon, and raisins. Cookies, made from scratch via a recipe that all would be hard pressed to find in any cookbook less than a hundred years old. The thick, sweet smell greeted him just before Adair's own smile, turned over her shoulder and the loose red braid that lay there, like a dead serpent. She was putting another batch into the tiny oven.
"Hello, Ducky," she cooed, her smile warm and sweet as the air--but also slightly haunted. Like always. "Come in--the first batch is about cool."
It had been scientifically proven that scents triggered memory better than anything else could, even visuals. The smell of Adair's freshly baked cookies wafting towards him through the air made him shut his eyes for a moment and inhale deeply. Instantly he was a little boy again, anxiously waiting for the cookies to cool down enough so he could eat them, and then of course burning his tongue on them when his patience proved to be lacking.
Zach opened his eyes again and full on smiled as he approached Adair, saliva already filling his mouth in anticipation. "I'm not sure you should still call me Ducky," he teased, "but then I'm not sure I really mind all that much when you've made me cookies." He went to sit down on a seat near her and tried to get a look at the batch she was putting in the oven. "At least I hope those are for me... I won't cry if they're not but I'll be pretty upset." Erin Davidson 5:02 pm Adair felt a pang twist through her throat when he asked her to retire his nickname. It was bittersweet in more ways than she really wanted to focus on--so she didn't. Her lips simply pressed together, but remained smiling as she nodded once, succinctly complying.
"As many as you can stand," she answered, forcing herself onward. The disuse of his childhood name was the least stressful part of this night. "Though I can't promise a few noses won't be sniffing around outside before long." She closed the oven and dusted her hands on the apron tied around her skirt--an archaic piece of kitchen accessories, but Adair never seemed to be much in tuned with 'the modern woman'.
It was only because he had studied her face so thoroughly at a child - he'd spent many an evening looking at it, after all - that Zach was able to pick up the subtle tightening of her mouth, even as she used it to smile beautifully at him. He smiled back tentatively but couldn't help furrowing his brows when she turned towards the oven again.
"As many as I can stand? Careful, I eat even more now than I did when I was twelve... and I was still growing back then," he joked mildly, leaning forward a little as she dusted her hands on her apron. Zach simply watched her for a few beats before he spoke up again. "I'll need a new nickname, of course. Can't have you calling me Zach, right?"
Her eyes, always a little too sharp, a little too blue in the night's muted colors, still had the ability to be soft--and they always were with him. They went softer still when he offered a compromise, and she chuckled soundlessly as she situated herself in the chair beside him.
"I suppose so," she condoned quietly, placing her hands across the lap of her skirt. It was long, dusting her ankles with white material as weightless as a cloud.
"There are a lot of things you're privy to here, now---things that you weren't concerned with as a child." Adair's words were touched by her breath, useless as it was to her. Just the start of the conversation was more difficult than she anticipated. A few fingertips started twisting the ring on her third left finger, placed there by Arkady a few nights ago. It's weight was a comfort she didn't know she sought.
Zachary had known the importance of body language long before he took his first psychology class, and his was nearly always open, inviting people to strike up conversation and confide in him. It wasn't something he ever actively thought about doing; it just happened naturally. With Adair, it was especially easy to turn his body towards her and give her his full attention.
"What kind of things?" Zach asked, voice just bordering on suspicious. He was more curious than anything else, though, as his eyes glanced at the ring on Adair's finger. Really, how could the gorgeous statement piece not catch his attention? It suited her; looked like it belonged on her hand even though he knew for a fact that it hadn't been there very long.
Adair looked in those gorgeous, soulful, lively hazel eyes, unable to take her gaze away even if she wanted to. They were still so innocent in so many ways, despite having reached what most would call 'full grown'. His eyes were always thirsty for anything and everything the carnival would give them. She wondered what they would look like when he could see it for what it really was.
Honestly, it scared her a little; so many things about his situation did. Again rolling her lips, her shoulders lifted and fell in a slow, cleansing breath.
"Zachary, what did your mother tell you about me? About why I can't go in the sun without protection--or why I never eat..."
Zach looked down at his own hands then, clenching his jaw when inevitably the image of his mother - his mother, beautiful and young and loving - pushed itself to the forefront of his mind. Even though he hadn't seen her in over twelve years, the knowledge that he would now never get to see her again still cut through his heart like a knife. He dealt better with the loss on some days than on others. Today had been reasonably okay, because he'd almost constantly been distracted... up until now.
"Mom," he started, collecting himself and fixing his eyes back on Adair, "momma, she --" he barked out a soft laugh at the memory of all the fairytales Grace had spun when she was still alive. "She told me that the sun was envious of your beauty. That it was the sun who was supposed to be the most radiant thing in and under the skies..." Zach smiled lovingly at Adair, "... but she wasn't; you were. So you had to stay inside always when she hung high as not to offend her. If you dared come out, her rays would burn you to ashes."
Zach reached for one of her hands and squeezed it once. "I never for a moment doubted her. I mean, it was so very easy for me to believe that story. Aside from mom, you were the most beautiful woman I knew." He frowned, looking lost in thought for a moment. "... you still are." He shook his head. "Anyway, I figure it's a very serious allergy, right? I know a few people who are allergic to the sun, though none suffer from as severe an allergy as you seem to have. As for eating... you eat, right? I mean, it's not because you do it in private that you don't do it at all."
Despite herself, Adair couldn't help but smile--the spread was slow, but just kept lengthening until she felt the familiar slide of her fangs under her top lip. She caught herself quickly by turning away from him in an almost sheepish, bashful way. She'd done it many times with him--so many, that it was habit. "Your mother was the best story-teller I ever knew," she said honestly, slowly bringing herself to face him again.
And took another deep breath, her gaze focused on his hands, then his eyes. "How about why I haven't aged in twelve years..." She let the pause linger, watching his eyes change as he tried to sift out an explanation that his mother was unable to give him.
"I've never lied to you. Not ever in your life--and I never will. This, I promise. That being said," she forced the constriction in her chest down, and focused on what absolutely needed to be done.
"What I'm about to tell you is not only crucial to your existence here, but to all those who find haven within mine and Arkady's protection. Your mother knew it, and she let your young mind play with what it could handle while you were a child. You're a man now," a dying man. "You need to know the truth."
Again she sighed, lacing her long fingertips together on the table. "Zachary, I'm never seen to eat because my body no longer needs food. The sun burns my skin because it is like kinder--flammable, and dead." She paused again, watching his eyes. "I don't age, because I stopped living over a hundred and sixty years ago."
With every word that spilled from her lips, Zachary grew increasingly more worried and confused. He slowly let go of her hand and leaned back in his chair, unconsciously putting some distance between their bodies. If he'd been frowning before, it was nothing compared to the shadow that appeared between his eyes right that moment, his lips pulling into a thin line and the corners turning down.
It was unsettling to say the least, to hear his former teacher - and the woman who'd shown him so much love and kindness during his childhood and the past couple of weeks - talk the sort of nonesense that wouldn't be misplaced in the mouth of a psychiatric patient. He should know; he'd treated his fair share of them during his internships. Adair was among the brightest women he knew, though, and nothing about her indicated that she was mentally unstable or even under the influence.
So she had to be joking, right? Zach's face smoothed out and he grinned, brows raising in disbelief. "You're joking." He shook his head in amusement and gave her a look. "Really, you had me going for a..." he didn't finish his sentence, as he took notice of the serious expression on her face. "You're not joking." It wasn't a question. Suddenly Zach felt too hot in his hoodie, too confined in the spacious trailer. All the blood drained from his face, and the amused look that had graced his face just a moment before disappeared like snow before the sun; made way for one of grave disturbance.
"Adair, this isn't funny," his words came out clipped, as his heart started beating faster. He knew that he was allowing himself to start panicking, that he should really focus on getting his breathing back under control, but it proved difficult to keep a rational mind in the face of Adair's revelations. "What the hell is going on? What are you?"
The distress written all over his face was painful to her--so much, in fact, that she found it increasingly difficult to watch; but she had to. There was no turning around now.
"It's not just me," she uttered, barely whispering and heart-breakingly apologetic. It was such a heavy burden, this knowledge... so much she had to place on his shoulders, when he already carried the weight of mortality. But it had to be done. "Myself, Arkady, and a few of the others are what you would know as 'vampires'." Though by the way she strangled that word as it left her lips, it was clear Adair considered it foul.
"I know it's difficult to take in--" Understatement of a few centuries, that. Adair wanted so much to take his hand again, but his body language and the cloud of tangible emotion filtering through his eyes to her predator's senses told her to keep her distance. Her fingertips curled tighter around each other, determined to remain where they were.
"Vampires?!" Zachary pushed abruptly pushed himself up out of the chair and put a safe distance between them, consciously this time around. "Do you even hear what you are saying?" His eyes were wide and wild with disbelief, and he repeatedly shook his head in hopes it would help him clear his mind of the madness Adair was continuing to go on about. It didn't.
Seeing the look on her face - defeated and apologetic and more than a bit sad - violently tugged at his heartstrings, but he'd learned a long time ago that compassion wasn't always love. He couldn't indulge her on this, much like he shouldn't have indulged his mother so many time when he was a child. Zach ran both hands through his hair and started pacing the trailer, keeping his eyes on her as he walked.
"You think you are a vampire. You and Arkady both. Blood drinking, sleeping in coffins, killing people, allergic to garlic, vampires." He shook his head once more, eyes going soft even though he still looked properly disturbed. This was Adair, whom he loved and adored and he couldn't freak out on her. He was a psychologist for Christ's sake! Certified and everything, and he couldn't just walk away from her when she so obviously needed his help.
"Adair," he said more gently - more softly - pinching the bridge of his nose hard for a moment before he returned his gaze on her, "you're not a vampire, and neither is anyone else. Vampires aren't real." For as much as he was insanely easy going and accepting of most things - it was what made him so likeable to most - he was not buying any of this. The educated, rational part of his mind simply wouldn't allow it.
At his intelligent, rational education waged war on everything she'd just said, Adair simply sat there in her soul-torn silence. To any that knew her--truly knew her, they'd attest that admitting out loud to what she was could be likened to forcing a mother to relive the death of her child. It was emotional torture to her, which is exactly why she didn't do it very often. And why a very sad, very haunted chuckle of irony went aimed down into her lap as he proceeded to correct her--to tell her that she wasn't this monster she knew she was.
"If only," she said sadly, looking up at him with more raw honesty than she anticipated. Something set in her jaw, made it like stone as she steeled herself for the next step in the process. Proof.
With one movement, smooth as oil and swift as a cobra strike, Adair's one hand slashed over her other arm, glass-sharp nails shredded the pristine marble skin in three vicious, long clawmarks from her elbow to the inside of her wrist. The pain flashed through her in a flood of red, and she winced harshly--hissing through bared teeth, and two very prominent, very delicate elongated canines.
The gashes bled, but they bled black, like crude from the ground... dropping globules of thickness to the table-top, but only for a second or two before her skin began to visibly thread itself back together. And the whole time, she watched him.
"No!" When Adair raked her perfectly filed, long nails over the delicate skin of her inner arm, Zachary actually physically lunged forward, one hand outstretched to stop her. She was much quicker than him, though, quicker than he could remember anyone ever being, and blood started flowing generously before he could do so much as take another step in her direction.
Only it didn't look like blood at all - wrong colour, wrong texture - and Zach gaped as the black drops hit the surface of the table. When next her skin started to stitch itself back together before his very eyes, he walked backwards like there was a hungry lion standing before him, not Adair. His back hit the wall of the tailer. "That's not possible," he said, more to himself than to the redhead, eyes still fixed on now perfectly smooth skin where a moment ago there had been small gashes. "Thats... really not possible."
He looked up from the inside of her arm to her eyes, heartbeat speeding up again and eyes going wider. It was a strange sensation, to be so scared of someone he knew so well - someone he would have trusted with his life up until now - but he was rattled to the bone by what had just happened. "I think I'm going to be sick." He made a face and clutched at his stomach. He needed to get out, get away. Sooner rather than later.
The fear that spread through him was thick as fog, permeating the trailer along with the comely scent of oatmeal cookies; it was that metaphysical scent that Adair's darker instincts tuned in to, and dead things inside her started switching on. His panic, his flight reflex, his racing pulse, all of it made her eyes clench shut as the demons inside her clawed at the inside of her stomach, spurring her to action. But she kept herself firmly rooted to her chair, and swallowed the spined knot in her throat with considerable effort.
"Ducky," she pleaded, her voice strained. "You need to calm down." Her words were accompanied by a push of mental effort on her part, as well as a hard line of contact between her eyes and his. The gift of suggestion was one Adair absolutely detested, she never used it, except in dire circumstances. The last time had been a very similar situation over a hundred years prior, when she'd been starving, and had been locked in a room with a human child. Jacob's hard-learned lesson to use her powers or succumb to them.
Her love and devotion to him reached out with that effort of thought, curling around his mind in hopes to calm it, just enough. "Please, sit down--there's more to tell you." If he made a break for the door--she'd have no choice but to stop him.
His body was at war with his mind. Mind led body, to the edge of the precipice. They stared in desire at the naked abyss. If you love me, said mind, take that step into silence. If you love me, said body, turn and exist. Zach groaned and covered his face with his hands as he slid down the wall of the trailer and onto the floor. Every cell in his body screamed at him to leave, but there was something keeping him firmly where he was. That something was more than likely his adoration for Adair; he was terrified of what he'd seen her do, if not of her words... but he couldn't imagine her ever hurting him. His body could, all too well, but his mind couldn't grasp the very idea.
"What more is there? I'm going crazy." Zach let his hands drop from his face and looked her straight in the eyes. "You're a vampire. Vampires are real and you're one of them." It was strange to say it aloud, the very words offensive to the part of him that still stubbornly refused to believe any of this was real. "I'm going crazy." He said again, calmer now for some reason. Whether it was acceptance or something else he didn't know, but he felt more at ease... less anxious.
He kept looking at her from across the room, eyes intense and pupils blown wide. "You're really a vampire."
She nodded, though the movement was exceedingly small, since she was still concentrating on the subducation of instincts buzzing on the same tune as his; like one tuning fork struck to another, humming in a dangerous harmony. She could feel him calm, which in turn settled her own boiling blood. One hump over with--so many more to go.
"There are things living in this world that Grace didn't need to weave stories around," she offered quietly, reaching for the damp towel that hung over the sink, so that she could clean the dark droplets on the table before they left stains. Her gaze lifted to his, even as she drew circles with the rag. "Many of the things presented in this carnival, are what they 'pretend' to be. Sugar, in the mermaid tank--she actually has a tail. The Twins--they become dangerous creatures on the full moon, and have to be locked in their own animal act's cages..." Adair's voice trailed, leaving the implication that there was so much more--but she wrapped it up like the cloth in her hand, tossed with effortless precision back into the sink. "This place is not just traveling entertainment. We are a haven for things that, as you should now realize, wouldn't get the best reception from the masses, if they knew the truth."
Zachary just sat there quietly and listened as Adair revealed the true nature of some of the other members of the Carnival, people - at least he still referred to them as such in his mind - he liked, some of them people he'd grown up with. It was difficult to wrap his head around, and he felt like he was being fed too much information at once, in too short a period of time. If he'd been a computer, he'd have crashed and burned already. As a matter of fact, there was a chance he still would, if the headache he felt coming up was any indication.
"Great," he commented dryly, rubbing soothing circles over his temples with his fingers, "mermaids are real, too." Zach closed his eyes and frowned, trying to process the information. "So why are you telling me this now?" He opened his eyes again and looked straight at her. "Why didn't you just leave it be? Is it because I'm leaving soon? Because I'm dying?" His lips settled into a thin line. "I think I'd have preferred not knowing." Which was odd, considering how curious he was, but true nonetheless.
With his tired, over-strained words that reflected the turmoil behind his eyes perfectly, Adair suddenly realized that everything she had just put him through (as well as herself) was really the easy part. The hard part had finally arrived.
The sting of tears welled behind her eyes, and she closed them to keep the blood from flowing. In such small quantities, the potent liquid in her veins was diluted and actually appeared red, giving the illusion of normal blood. If blood coming from a woman's tear-ducts could be considered 'normal'.
"If you're going to be here, you need to be aware--for your own safety. From many things here, a man recieves much more attention than a child--especially a man many of them do not recognize." That was the first explanation, but by the look in Adair's eyes when she finally opened them, a hint of red clinging to her lashes, it was clear she wasn't finished.
Even though Adair didn't shed any tears, Zach didn't need them to know that she was hurting; that telling him these things was hard on her too. Which made him wonder all the more why she'd chosen to share them. He hadn't been lying when he told her that he would have preferred being left in the dark. He still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that vampires were real, and that the redhead was one of them.
Zach quirked a brow at her, jaw still tense. "What, like unwanted attention?" He shook his head and scoffed. "I've been gone a long time, but I still know my way around this place, Adair. Even if what you're saying is true, I could never feel scared here. Anyway, I'm dying. If something wants to kill or eat me, " he shuddered, despite himself. The idea that most of the Carnival's members were monsters was still absurd, " they're welcome to try. I bet I taste foul."
He cocked his head at her. "But then you'd know that, wouldn't you? You also know I'm not planning to stay here until my dying breath so what's really behind all this?"
She wasn't used to Zach being so aggressive with his inquiries, or perhaps she was, only when they came from the curious mind of a child. Not this man in front of her, who had every right to be angry with the world--what of it he had left. Which she had just darkened. That thought alone dropped the first crimson tear down her cheek.
She took another shuddering breath before continuing on. "The many stories about us--much of them are simply rumor and legend; one of the more obscure is actually true--our blood can heal humans." However promising those words may have sounded, Adair's long face indicated that it was not the miracle she was offering. "--we tried to heal your mother, but it didn't work. The disease was written in her essence, not her blood." In her archaic way of speaking, she explained what she and Arkady had not known. Injury and infection, they could cure. Not something passed in the genes.
"I cannot save you from your death," more tears fell as she went on and watched him, seeing the face of the woman she had watched slowly wither into madness, until she could take no more. "But I can deliver you from it. I can stop it from getting worse; I can make it so you never know that pain."
Perhaps he was crazy for even entertaining the thought, but when Adair told him a vampire's blood could heal humans, a little bit of the hope he'd long since abandoned flickered up inside him again... soon to be extinguished when she went on to say it hadn't cured his poor mother. Zach swallowed hard and frowned, a wary expression settling over his face. The blood streaking her cheeks made his stomach feel queasy, if only because it was such a strange sight to behold.
"How can you save me if you weren't able to save my mom?" He asked. The words didn't come out like an accusation - you failed her, just like I did - or like a mockery - seriously, Adair, blood? - but like the question they were. Zach didn't sound hopeful because he wasn't... as a matter of fact, he still didn't even know whether to believe her or not, even with the proof she'd given him, but she was still important to him and it was obviously important to her that he at least hear her out. "No one can stop me from dying. It's not possible."
There was a small part of her that twisted and writhed with disgust at what she was thinking, what she was suggesting. She'd been made against her will, but she hadn't been terminally ill--not in the way Zachary was. Adair knew this was selfish of her--to fear watching him deteriorate as she had with Grace. Yet, here she was. She simply could not stop herself.
"I can make you like Arkady and myself--your illness could never again touch you, nor would any other illness, or age. You can remain strong and young..." As much as her points may've been miraculous to some, still looked as though she were watching the life slip from his eyes. She couldn't bear it should she have to watch it for real. Not without saving him.
The look on Zach's face changed to something far more primal than wariness, something darker; it was horror, mixed with a healthy dose of disbelief. "No," he bit out, almost immediately. Adair hadn't explicitly used the word "vampire", but her offer chilled him to the bone nonetheless. "No," he repeated, sitting up a little straighter against the wall. "I don't want to be like you."
He hadn't meant for the words to come out so harshly, but it was the naked truth. He needed her to understand that it wasn't an option. "I've only known for less than half an hour that vampires are even real. I don't want to become one." He set his jaw and placed his hands flat on the floor next to him. "I'm not fine with dying... I'm scared as hell... but that's not a way out I'm willing to take."
I don't want to be like you. The words cut through her like a silver knife, and Adair felt her heart tear at the seams and bleed Shame. Her eyes closed as he went on, drawing the back of her hand across her cheeks to rid the white flesh of it's color. In two hundred years of life experience, she had nothing to prepare her for such a conversation, let alone it's aftermath.
After a moment to compose herself (which didn't really work), the warm air in the trailer filled her non-functional lungs with what was supposed to be a deep, cleansing breath. It didn't work either.
"I know I've put so much on you tonight," she began, rising from her seat in order to rescue the cookies from the oven, which she could smell getting crispy. She grabbed them from the rack with her bare hand and set them on the counter. "For that, I'm sorry..." She couldn't even look at him. She simply hung there, belly against the cabinets with her eyes red-rimmed and barely focused on anything. She longed for Arkady, for his strength and fortitude on the matter. In that moment, Adair felt as weak as an orchid in a storm.