Seth Klein (sklein) wrote in new_salem, @ 2016-06-13 14:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | riley quinn, seth klein |
Sunday
Who: Seth and Riley
When: Sunday
Where: The grocery store then Riley's place
What: Reunited
Seth still wasn't happy about being back in New Salem. Mara was miserable which, in turn, made him miserable. He would have been content if he had never had to come back to this place, never had to step foot in this town again. But he hadn't had a choice. He could have refused to return, of course, but that would have just resulted in the coven sending some of their members to retrieve Mara and himself by force. It wasn't worth all of that. He had seen what could happen in those instances and, well, he recognized his own expendable nature where the coven was concerned and knew this was really the only option. But just because it made the most sense didn't mean that he had to like it. He could still scowl about it. And scowling he was as he trolled the aisles at the local market, trying to find something to throw together for dinner. Cooking wasn't exactly his strong suit, but he didn't think a third day of Chinese takeaway was the mark of good parenting.
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Riley had the day off, the next couple actually. A rare occurrence, he often took extra shifts to help with the work load at the shelter, but his right hand there forced him to take off a couple days...with the logic he wouldn't do anyone any good if he passed out from exhaustion. So here he was in the market, in the mood to cook, or bake, or both and he was in desperate need of ingredients. Considering his cupboards were bare, this was definitely a priority.
He sipped his coffee as he walked around the aisles, filling up his cart, stopping to chat with a few townspeople here and there. Riley was lost in his own head for a minute, which was the only reason he had to explain why he didn't notice the man in front of him and why he bumped him with his cart.
"OH..crap I'm so sorry." He said quickly as he came around the cart. "Are you...okay?" He asked, his voice trailing off for a second when he realized who it was. "Seth?" Riley said with a slight smile.
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Seth was busy scowling at the many cans of beans on the shelf when the cart rammed into his left leg. He was remembering without much fondness the days of beans on toast while simultaneously considering that for dinner as it was something he was fairly confident he could pull off without burning. The assailant was met, at least at first, with the scowl that he seemed to be wearing with permanency on his face these days before familiarity then recognition crossed his features followed by the feeling of a familiar tightness in his chest that caused his breath to catch momentarily.
"Riley." It took him a moment to speak, but once he did, he gave it his best attempt to ignore those internal workings that were ignited by the sight of him here and respond in a more casual sort of way. "So this is where you ran off to." Years. It had been years. And things hadn't exactly ended on the best note between the two of them all those years ago. Hence why it had been so long since they had spoken. "How are you," he asked, then swallowed somewhat hard, shifting his gaze back to the shelf because he was having a difficult time keeping himself in check while looking at him.
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Riley was a doing an okay job of not acting like an idiot, in Seth's presence, at least he hoped so. His insides were all fluttering and jumpy, which was not helpful. All of that was so long ago, and he was a god damn adult now for pete's sake. Fuck seeing him now for the first time in forever, Riley could feel the physical ache he had without Seth.
He cleared his throat and nodded. "Um yeah, the Coven paid for medical school, as long as I promised to come back." He said as he shoved his hands in his pockets. The awkwardness of this moment, was reminding Riley how badly it had gone the last time they had been together.
"I'm good, I run the New Settler's shelter and clinic, doing my best to help out. It's what I like doing." Riley said with a smile and then ran a hand through his hair, wanting to reach out and cuddle against Seth.
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"The coven's idea. Of course." Seth could barely stop himself from scoffing. It was no real secret that he had issues with the coven. He always had and likely always would. And now his daughter was on the verge of becoming a big part of it. He hated it. He hated it for her and for himself. They were the ultimate in puppeteers, that was for certain.
"Yeah," Seth asked, glancing over at Riley once more. "That sounds like you," he remarked, with no small degree of fondness. He couldn't stop the slight smile from tugging at the corners of his lips. "I'm doing... nothing," he said in answer to the question that hadn't been asked yet. "Mara and I just got here a few weeks ago. She's... going to be training and I'm..." He gestured towards the shelf in front of him and kind of laughed, "Trying to find something to feed her other than Chinese takeaway."
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Riley shrugged at Seth's statement, he was grateful to the coven but he had grown up in an environment that hated them just as much as Seth did if not more, so Riley didn't really like them much either, however he didn't like to show his distaste for the coven out in public.
The younger man smiled at him and then bit his lip when he mentioned Mara. "Oh...fuck Mara, the poor girl." Riley's true feelings about the coven were shown in that statement, which he quickly frowned at himself and then huffed. "She must be um unimpressed with it all." He said, annoyed at himself for being so busy, if he hadn't been he would have known Seth and Mara were coming home to New Salem.
"You still can't cook?" He teased and then blushed slightly as a memory shot to the surface of a time he tried to show Seth how to cook something, and how the results ended up getting eaten off of each other.
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Seth had to laugh at Riley's reaction. It was so honest and unexpected. "My sentiments exactly." He exhaled a small sigh, a hand moving up to run fingers back through his dark hair. "She's.... excited about how wealthy we actually are. But other than that...." He shook his head. "She hates this place. Hates me for bringing her here. Like I had a choice." He frowned again.
And there it was, the moment that cracked the shell he had built up around himself since coming here and brought back the Seth of days gone by. "Oh, I can cook," he remarked, almost sounding serious about it. But then he gave away the joke with a grin as he added, "Just not in the kitchen." Of course the same memory came to mind as he added, "At least not without some help."
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Riley gave him a half smile and then shrugged at his honestly. "Yeah money is nice to have, but at what price." He said and then shook his head. "She doesn't hate you, she's going to see the truth of it all soon enough, you know that." Riley said as he placed his hand on Seth's arm, pulling it back when he realized what he was doing.
The statement made Riley laugh and then roll his eyes. "Yeah you were good everywhere but." He teased as his cheeks went red at Seth's implications. Riley bit his lip and glanced around to see if anyone was watching them. This small town, supernatural or not still loved it's gossip.
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"I know. It's just..." Seth frowned, shaking his head with a small sigh. "Not what I wanted for her." He'd been hopeful that the responsibility would pass her by, be put off on one of the other daughters of the coven. But there had been no other daughters. There was no one else to burden.
The biting of the lower lip was always something that had done things to Seth. Now was no exception. But when he saw him looking around to be sure no one was watching, which no one was at the moment, he couldn't help but to tease him about it. "Ah, I see," he began as he reached up to grab a can of beans and put in his handbasket. "Don't want to be seen being all familiar with an old man. I get it." And of course he was pretending that he was all hurt and offended.
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"She deserves more, I...she doesn't deserve the pull it will have on her soul." Everyone knew that the desire to be dark was a war every great coven witch had to fight in the beginning. "But on the other side... if that spunky little girl grew up to be as amazing as I thought she would...she will be an ledgendary leader and you know it." He said with a grin.
Riley rolled his eyes and laughed. "Stop it, this town is rife with gossip mongers you know that. I'm still unmated and without child, info on my life is huge gossip." He grumbled and then glanced into his cart and bact at Seth. "If you're done here, we could go talk...I mean if you wanted." Riley said, a little nervous to not be in a public setting with Seth.
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And that was what Seth was most afraid of. He knew enough about the darkness of his own nature to understand that there was some of that in Mara too. And whether she would be able to resist it or not.... It was scary to think about. "Hopefully for the right reasons," Seth replied, that one small sentence summing up all of his fears. But there was no sense in dwelling on it. What would be would be and there was nothing to be done. He could only hope that the good won out in her in the end.
Seth had to try not to grin and give himself away. Of course then Riley extended the invitation to go somewhere other than a public place and Seth couldn't help but jump at the opportunity. At the risk of seeming way too eager, he set his handbasket down on the floor next to where he stood and announced, "I'm done." They could always order a pizza later. At least it wasn't Chinese and she'd likely enjoy that way more than anything he tried to cook for her.
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Riley understood Seth's fear, there had been more than one witch who chose the darkness and had to be banished or destroyed when they wouldn't relenquish their position in the coven. "She will win, that girl has too much light in her." Riley said softly.
Seth's announcement made him laugh and he nodded. "Well you can walk with me to the cash, I can't survive without food in my house." Once Riley paid for his groceries, and had roped Seth into carrying some bags, he headed for home, walking distance away. "Thanks for coming with, I really do think we should talk." Riley said once they reached his small, but well kept house. The Quinns had never been the richest of the coven families, but they were not the poorest by any means. They had been powerful enough to have a few coven 'slaves' of their own. Sadly Riley's sister was the first girl of the Quinn family in a very long time. She was important to coven, but of course since she was a Quinn and not a Klein, or one of the other 'royal' families, she was not in line to be a leader.
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Seth rolled his eyes at Riley. "Fine," he replied, exasperated. Of course that was all for show. He walked up front with him, waited with him in line, perusing a magazine as he did so, then grabbed a couple of the grocery bags. Seth already knew where the Quinn house was, so he didn't need directions there and knew that it was close. The trip there was made in silence, at least as far as words went. Thoughts, on the other hand, couldn't be stilled.
"What should we talk about?" Seth placed the bags down on the kitchen counter, trying to avoid Riley's gaze as he asked, "Us?" The term felt strange on his tongue. Alien. And yet, there it was. And there it had been once upon a time. He'd never been part of an "us" before Riley, not really. And he couldn't say that he had been since either. What had happened between the two of them had been different from anything he'd experienced with anyone else. Seth knew what it was, knew the word for it, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to say it back then. And that had been a big part of the problem.
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The younger man started putting his groceries away, taking a deep breath when Seth asked if he wanted to talk about them. "Is that a subject you want to talk about? You...you never wanted to before." Riley bit his lip, worried at how deep this was going to go. There was no 'just catching up' between them, he could feel the weight, the intense pull between them, they couldn't just sip coffee and talk like normal people, they never could.
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Riley didn't need to know the extent to which Seth had been involved with his family before him. This house had a lot of memories for him though. And not exactly pleasant ones either. At least it looked different now though. It had Riley's touches throughout every part he had been in. And yet he still recalled precisely how it had looked the last time he had been here and what had transpired on that particular day, though he was doing his best now not to think about it,
"No, I didn't," Seth admitted, picking up a can of something and looking at the label for a moment, just as a form of distraction, before he sat it down and forced himself to look at Riley instead. "Because you were still so young, and a Quinn, and a witch, and I wanted no part of that life anymore. So I couldn't be okay with just..." He exhaled a small sigh. "Letting myself love you, even though I did. Very much so."
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Riley looked at him as he spoke, not quite sure what was going to come out of Seth's mouth in this moment but he needed to hear it. When he met Seth's eyes he was surprised, the young part, the witch part he knew, but being a Quinn, he never knew that it would be an issue. But those words disappeared when Seth spoke the next one. "You loved me?" He asked as he sat up on the counter, he needed to move or do something because he was so nervous.
Riley chewed on his bottom lip for a moment and then sighed. "I loved you so fucking much, now I know that I was too young back then and I was so angry." He said softly. "I never thought I could get over it though." Riley said as he looked at Seth.
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"Yes," Seth confirmed with a soft sigh. "I did." Emotions were not exactly his strong suit. Being open and honest.... Not his thing, really. But he was older now. And, quite honestly, he was tired. Of being alone. Of fighting who and what he was. Of running away. That more than anything was why he had agreed to just come back of his own accord rather than waiting to be forced. Ten years ago, even five years ago, he would have let them come. And he wouldn't have gone down without a fight. But now... Perhaps being a father had changed him in spite of himself.
"You did, though, didn't you?" As much as he would like to think Riley had spent all this time hung up on him, he didn't really want that. He wanted the other man to have a happy and full life. To experience the gamut of emotions that came with being a part of this world. It would be selfish to want otherwise. As he spoke, he gravitated towards the other man, without any real conscious recognition of it, coming to stand in front of him where he sat on the counter, close but not touching. He'd been very careful about that.
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"I suppose it was good I didn't know that for sure then, I would have been a lot harder to get rid of." He chuckled and then rested his head back against the cabinet, imagining for a moment what might have happened if he had known...Riley would have destroyed it, he couldn't have handled that kind of thing back then.
Riley turned his green eyes to Seth and he smiled a little. "Not totally, but enough to live a life without regrets. I knew I had to come back here once I became licensed, I wasn't wasting one second of it. I missed you, but I wasn't going to sit and mope about you." He said as he noticed how Seth was standing. Riley spread his thighs slightly, touching Seth lightly. "I haven't given the coven a child, they will force me to, you know." Riley said as his hand reached out and took Seth's. "I don't want to dance around this...I want to be an adult with you and go on a date, have a real shot...but I can't fight the coven demands, you need to know that." He said, swallowing hard, very worried that Seth will back out of what Riley thought might be happening here.
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"You were pretty hard to get rid of regardless," Seth teased with a soft laugh. They would have both burned it down back then. It would have destroyed them both. Thank God he had been smart enough to put a stop to it, though there were still times when he thought back on those moments and wished that he hadn't.
"Good," Seth replied honestly. "I always hoped you'd have a good life." When Riley spread his thighs slightly, Seth took a few more steps forward, placing himself between them now. He allowed Riley to take his hand, the other moving to rest upon the younger man's hip. "I know that. You're of no use to them otherwise." The hand on his hip moved around to the small of his back, tugging him forward a bit, almost to the edge, and closing some of the space between them. "Tomorrow night? I'll pick you up at seven."
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"It was part of my charm." Riley said with a laugh and then bit his lip. Knowing they would have destroyed what they had if they stayed together helped him to remember it was for the best, but Riley too had often wished to god that it could have continued.
Riley smiled wide at him when he said good, he had a past he wanted to share with Seth, but he hoped he had a present to share with him as well. He shivered at his slight touch and then looked down for a moment. Every man had to come to terms with the coven and how it functioned. Luckily for Seth and Riley they had magic, they were treated better than the non magical, but they were still men and useless other than their sperm.
When Seth said he would pick him up, Riley raised his eyes to the older man and smiled slowly before sliding his arms around his neck and nodding. "Yeah, I think that would be perfect."
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It was a struggle being a male witch. It was even more of a struggle being a male witch that preferred the company of men over women since the only real use of a male witch was to produce female heirs for the coven. Seth had done so purely by accident and had made sure that another accident wouldn't take place. Mara was the only child he intended to have. Riley, on the other hand, was still obligated. Seth knew that. There was no point in playing around, no point in being hurt over it, no point in trying to argue. He would have to find some woman with whom to produce offspring. Seth would have to be okay with that if they were to have a future together. And he was. Or at least he could be.
"Then it's a date," Seth agreed. Of course now that he had broken down and placed his hands on him, precisely what he knew would happen happened. With the technicalities settled and out of the way, Seth leaned forward to press a kiss against Riley's lips, that hand sliding from his back to the back of his head to hold him in place and keep him from bumping his head against the cabinets behind him.
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Riley was still trying to find a way to be okay with it, and was hoping he could find a woman who would accept the turkey baster method, he had no interest in fucking one in the near future. Growing up outside of the coven's reach had definitely been worth it. Men who lived in the coven their whole lives were very unhappy.
"Good." He said softly, happily kissing Seth back, his stomach fluttering all over again. It amazed him how just a simple kiss from this man could cause him to be like this, but no one before this had ever brought out the same feelings in Riley.
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Seth broke away from the kiss gently. He didn't press it until he was short of breath or anything, instead just allowed it to linger long enough for them both to savor it but for it not to be too overwhelming. Instead, he'd ended it with a few light, sweet pecks on the lip before he came to rest with his forehead against Riley's own. "Mmm," he began. "Still got it." He opened his eyes and then grinned. On a more serious note, though...
"I feel we've reached a crossroads, Riley." He inhaled a deep breath and exhaled it in a huff. "I can either... Go home right now and see you tomorrow night, as planned or...." He slid his hand down to the nape of Riley's neck. "I can keep touching you and kissing you and, you know, NOT leave any time soon. In which case, I will still see you tomorrow night as planned so..." He pulled back a little and inhaled and exhaled deep breath. "Your call." He wanted to respect him and not just immediately assume he was going to bed him right now even though he really, really wanted to.
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Riley snorted and then looked at him, frowning just slightly at the fact that Seth just put this decision on him...but he was just trying to be respectful of course. Riley sat back, chewing on his lip as he thought about it and then sighed. "Well I feel that this time around, you should respect me, and I shouldn't give it up to you without you at least buying me dinner first." He said, letting the sentence hang there for a moment. "So you better get your phone out and order a pizza before things get more naked around here." He said with a grin. "Also this just means you're gonna have to work for it tomorrow night..." Riley said with a laugh.
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"Hey, I respected you!" Seth was actually somewhat insulted at being accused otherwise. But then Riley let him in on his joke. He scowled at him, narrowing his eyes. "You little shit," he teased, then poked him in the ribs before moving one hand up to guard his head, because he was about to start squirming and he didn't want him to hurt himself, before really going in for the kill. In other words, he started tickling the shit out of him. It was only fair! And Riley's unadulterated laughter when being tickled was, or at least it had been, one of his favorite sounds in the world. Hopefully he was still ticklish.
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Riley's eyes were sparkling as Seth was getting offended and then he couldn't hold it in, he started laughing at the other man. But the second he started to tickle him, Riley started to squirm and laugh much harder. "Stop!" He gasped as he tried to get away, learning from so many simaler assaults from Seth. Riley leaned in and kissed him hard, biting his lower lip before pressing his tongue inside his mouth. Hoping this would be enough to distract Seth.
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He was still ticklish. And his laugh was still one of Riley's favorite sounds. It had changed slightly, of course, Riley's voice having grown deeper with age, but he still adored it. And he was about to stop and tell him as much when Riley decided to utilize a tactic of his own. The kiss caught him off guard, and he groaned a little, then opened his mouth to accept that tongue, kissing him back with as much fervor as he had reserve in their last kiss. It was safe to say he was distracted.