Julian Blackwood (synapticstatic) wrote in nybynightic, @ 2020-11-18 22:10:00 |
|
|||
It wasn’t his original intent for his visit to Micah and really stopping and visiting Maya for answers had just been a pit stop on his way here. An idea that had gotten into his head after his trace the other night. No, he had come by to discuss other things and now he just had more in his head than before. Hopefully something among it all would be of use to Micah.
He paused long enough to look at the Ventrue Primogen’s assistant to make sure that he wasn’t in the middle of a meeting or with someone before he slipped into the office. Seeing that Micah was on the phone though, Julian just slipped into one of the leather chairs to patiently wait for the busy Primogen to be done, just flashing him a quick smile and a look so Micah could see he was cleared eyed and minded and that it wasn’t something worrisome or pressing that he couldn’t sit and wait.
It would be awhile before Micah could properly pay attention to Julian. Even if he was aware of the other’s presence from the moment that he slipped into the room the way Micah was attuned to the Malkavian’s presence frequently of late.
The fallout from Halloween and the increased activity of hunters in the city were all things that meant a lot of work had to be done—much of it coordinated behind the scenes. From getting people to dig up the hunter hideouts to tracking down the mess from Halloween. The Hounds were doing their part too, of course. But Micah liked having his ear to the ground. In times like these, only knowledge would keep you afloat.
But he did finally put away the phone, leaning back against his chair, eyes travelling to the solitary figure on the couch in his office, assessing, "Business or pleasure? If you’ve got anything other than the latter, I reserve the right to pretend I'm not around."
“There’s no reason it can't be both,” Julian suggested with a smirk. It wasn’t as if it wasn’t the first he had shown up in Micah’s office to offer up some more needed stress relief for the Ventrue. But right now they should probably focus on the other things that Julian had come here for even if they did smack awfully close to the business side of things. The Malkavian just hoped they were things that could help take some things off of Micah’s plate rather than add on to them.
“There’s an ambitious ghoul who is wanting to set up a system for ghouls to help keep an eye on each other with what all is going on. A neighborhood watch for ghouls as he put it but I’m thinking it would have to be even broader than that to be of any effect but it’s not a bad idea. I’ve offered to help if possible since I understand better than most what a ghoul can face on the daily and the dangers outside those currently present with the hunters. I figure it helps with the issues of the missing ghouls already having to be looked into and shows the clan Ventrue taking an initiative when the rest of the clans are still fighting over what to do.” Julian spread his hands out in front of him. “I wouldn’t need anything directly from you, just access to your resources and some of your men if it came down to it.”
Micah regarded Julian for a moment. There was a part of him that would always remember Julian as the Malkavian full of bravado that had approached him recklessly that night at his club—bravely, foolishly. But it was increasingly obvious, especially now listening to Julian speak, that Julian had grown into something else. Something stronger, more secure in his own shoes; sure of his place in this society full of political machinations.
“Sounds like you’ve already got everything figured out.” Which was more teasing than anything else. But Julian could do anything he wanted in his free time, Micah had made that abundantly clear from the start.
He just hadn’t realised that Julian was so inclined to put himself out there for the welfare of others.
“What’s in it for me?” After all, Micah was still a businessman at the core. And even if they both knew that he was going to agree to this in the end, he wouldn’t be who he was if he weren’t trying to set the record straight.
“If it works out then it makes you the one Primogen who actually did something while the others did nothing,” Julian pointed out. After all at this point everyone knew that Julian was Micah’s Malkavian and that anything he learned was at a risk of being passed on to him. “More clout for clan Ventrue.”
He gave Micah a smirk but then it faded as he remembered the ghoul he had found. “And it’s one more thing off your checklist of things to do right? If we can get the ghouls to police themselves, it allows more time to focus on the hunter problem itself. And it allows me to help take at least one thing off your plate to help lighten the load.”
Micah smiled, full of teeth. "Well aren't you the enterprising one." Everything that Julian had pointed out was true, of course. Which was why they both knew what Micah's eventual answer was, it was only a matter of what they wanted to portray to the general public. And appearances were everything to the kindred.
"Looks like I should be rewarding you for your efforts, no?" He stood from his desk chair and circled around to the front, eyes fixed on Julian, before leaning against the side of it, testing his weight on it, giving Julian a meaningful look as he did.
That look wasn’t lost on Julian at all. As much as he wanted to get up and go to Micah or reach up and tug him forward to join him on the couch, such things needed to wait before he lost the other things that were in his mind as well,
“I stopped and saw Maya before coming here.” Here Julian didn’t seem nearly as confident as he had in bringing up the ghoul issues. Mostly because with that he had more clear ideas and knew that it had the potential to please Micah. This was just bringing him more riddles wasn’t it as he was still trying to figure out what all it meant.
“She spoke to me.”
Mentioning Maya aroused simultaneously a wariness and a skepticism in Micah, all obvious in the way he narrowed his eyes at Julian when the topic came up. It wasn’t often that the Malkavian Primogen even made appearances these days—and less still, when she was in a state capable of decent conversation. Yet for some reason she kept this link to Julian and, much to Micah’s tried patience, kept utilising it to send Julian cryptic messages without much to go on.
“Anything useful?” It was clear from his tone that he wasn’t sure that there would be. Not a surprise, given all the things that had come from her recently.
Julian knew that the look Micah gave wasn’t directed at him specifically but it still made him drop his gaze for the time being just the same. “None of the answers I sort of course. Just a cryptic flash from her for a moment, like a light bulb flickering for a moment before going back out.”
He gave a sigh because he knew he himself was falling into such things right now. Sometimes being around other Malkavians was a helpful thing. Other times like right now it was anything but.
Getting up, Julian closed the distance between himself and Micah. Not so that he could be intimate with his lover, but so that the next thing he had to say would be between the two of them alone. It looked intimate enough as he brushed his lips over Micah's but as he did he whispered into Micah’s mind “A Justicar comes to pass judgement against us. Against Lucian. And in doing so, all will die.”
There was an absolute stillness from Micah, every last trace of his earlier playfulness wiped from stern and sombre features. In that instant, even the air around them seemed darker somehow, ominous in a way that resonated with what Julian was saying.
Micah wanted to put this down to more of Maya’s crazed delusions. But this was far too much to simply leave to chance.
“Did she show you anything?” It was a slim chance. But words alone were not much to go on. And something of this magnitude needed every last piece of information they could get their hands on. A Justicar was not something they needed in the city, not when they lived by an entirely different set of rules—rules and standards of their own making, with enough power to enforce them and make their opinions law.
Julian licked his lips and shook his head. “She’s far too gone for that. Unless that was her the other night trying to show me. But in this, only words and I could find no other trace of her there in her mind.” Just a shell who seemed to hang on to some knowledge or vision that only she understood. Why she chose him to be the one to burden with it was unknown because she sure wasn’t sharing that information.
Having told Micah the most he could make of it himself, he told the Ventrue just what the Malkavian Primogen had told him word for word while it was still there to haunt his mind. Not that he thought such words were going to be leaving his own mind anytime soon.
“I wish I had more I could go on or tell you other than more cryptic words from another broken Malk. I’m sure you’re getting tired of them by now.” Even if Micah now currently held knowledge that others did not. A Justicar and Death where both headed their way.
Micah fought the urge to sigh. It wasn’t very much to go on at all. It wasn’t even enough to know if this was the last warning of a Malkavian Primogen or the deranged ramblings of a crazed mind. If Maya had seen something, that would be something to go on, but as it stood…
He fell silent without seeming to realise it. If this was indeed true, then they needed to be ready for it. But how could you possibly prepare a city for the arrival of a Justiciar? Of death itself? If the fates were stacked against you in the first place, how could you hope to reverse that?
This was exactly why Micah never sought out Malkavians and their predictions, much preferring to entrust his own destiny to his own two hands. But now that it had been thrust upon him, there was nothing else for it except to keep moving forward as best they could.
Even if it was starting to seem an insurmountable task.
“If what she said is really true, then all our resources should be poured into this. I need to know the ‘when’ and the ‘what’ of it. What their intention for being here is. When this is going to happen. There are too many variables. Nothing can be left to chance.” Micah did sigh, here. “There’s a reason the Kindred barely even speak of them—we do not want one in the city.”
It was becoming clear to Julian that while he had taken one thing off of Micah’s plate by offering to deal with this ghoul issue, he had just replaced it with a far greater burden by bringing him the information that he had with what Maya had told him.
For a moment the Malkavian fidgeted in place before he went back over and sunk down on the couch. It was clear that he should have just stayed away from Maya in the first place but since he had not, he felt like it was his place to fix this. To find clearer answers which was asking a lot of any Malkavian let alone one who was still as fragile as Julian.
“I’ll drive into the web like I did before. See if there aren’t still over fragments of Maya’s subconscious to be found there. More pieces of what she saw that will tell us more. I’m even stronger now so maybe I can find more.”
Looking up from where he was still plotting the immediate steps he needed to take and the alternatives they had for action, Micah saw the look on Julian’s face and realised immediately what Julian must have been thinking. In many ways, it was true. There was a far lot more to be done now and Micah wasn’t even sure that all of it would amount to anything in the end—that was always the case with Malkavian predictions. But to pin all of it onto one Malkavian was setting them up to follow in the footsteps of Maya.
Micah watched Julian for awhile, silent.
“Even then. Stronger Malkavians have lost themselves to far less.” The truth was never easy to hear, but empty words of encouragement were not something Micah could speak at any time—he opted for a comfortable middle ground. “It’s not your duty to solve the puzzles she’s left for us.”
"Yet in bringing them to you all I've done is bring you even more to deal with when you have so much to deal with already. I've just added to your stress when I meant to take some of it away."
And what if Maya’s predictions were true and it meant Micah’s death was going to come as a result of this Justicar coming? Julian was fully aware that the death toll within the city was far from over and yet the thought of that death bothered him the most.
"What good is it having a Malkavian around if I can't provide you with answers?"
That, strangely, made Micah laugh. He took the few steps between them, breaching the distance and taking a spot beside Julian on the couch. "If I wanted real answers, a Malkavian is the last I would approach." Not with how unreliable they were.
Leaning back, his tone was nevertheless warm and his eyes oddly amused, as if Julian had shared an infinitely funny joke. "That's definitely not the reason I keep you around."
Which begs the question, of course.
Julian stared at Micah for what seemed like forever—but was really only a matter of moments—as he considered whether he was brave enough to ask that question. It was one he had asked himself often enough.
If he did ask it, he wondered if he’d get another because like he had gotten when he had asked Micah why he hadn’t just let Dorian kill him.
Finally, Julian did let himself ask. “Then why?”
Micah didn’t say anything for a long, drawn moment. There was a silence as he simply kept staring at Julian. At this ghoul-turned-kindred latching onto him at first as a substitute for the Sire he never had, and now—Micah wasn’t sure what they were, exactly, but there was an undeniable association; something about Julian that he wasn’t so keen to simply shake off the way he had countless others before him.
“You’ve asked this question before,” he reminded Julian. His hand reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair out of the other’s face. Sitting this close, he could see the individual eyelashes on Julian and noted with idle amusement that they were the same shade of blond as his hair, enhancing already wide eyes that seemed to grow rounder and rounder as he contemplated Micah’s answer to his question. “I only do things that I want; And I want you around. I like having you around.” Far more than anyone else he could possibly have.
“I know I have it’s just that—” They both knew how sensitive and vulnerable Julian could be at times. Not clingy, never that, but it was clear that at times he was still unsure of his footing as he continued to figure out everything now that he was allowed to do so on his own. A vast difference in what he was used to. In what he had come to expect.
Julian shifted so that he could slide over and settle on Micah’s lap, letting his arms drape over the other’s shoulders as he did. “I’m not used to having someone want me around for me and not for what use I can be of to them.” Though the young Malkavian knew that his abilities aside that he was of use in a number of ways considering he had been groomed for it. And it was more than the undeniable way that they fit together sexually as well. That was most certainly never in question. “Nor am I used to having anyone take care or look after me the way you do either even though you don’t have to.”
Micah was quiet, allowing Julian to get this off his chest. It had clearly been a pressing concern for the Malkavian, even if Micah wasn't the sort to bother with such trivialities.
He looked at Julian, watching those brows knit and smoothen, then knit again—a young Kindred trying to figure out his place in the world. Micah remembered that too, even if it had been a whole age ago. Without a sire, without any kind of family left, the sense of disorientation and isolation was overwhelming. Even if being embraced got rid of the body's physical limitations, it didn't change those other intangible things. In this, they were not so dissimilar, Julian and him.
"Don't get used to it," Micah warned, though his tone was anything but upset. Instead, he traced the side of Julian's cheek and explained, "Don't get used to anything except relying on your own two hands. Anything else will eventually fail you." It was clear that this was what Micah lived and abided by, an unshakeable ethos that had shaped his current success and status.
Julian frowned has he considered those words. He knew what Micah meant. In a way hadn’t relying on anything else ended up being what had landed him where he had been in the first place? So that he had to pull and scrape to get away?
When it came to the material things in life, Julian didn't need someone else to take care of him. That part was never a worry. It was the rest of it. The cracks. The broken pieces.
"I've been handling things better." Or at least he thought he was. Some of the things they did, some of the ways Micah made him focus seemed to help. "But I'll always be—" broken "—Malkavian."
It was true that Micah felt he had a good spot of luck with which clan he'd fallen into despite how he had initially been embraced. But luck never featured into anything he did, and were he Malkavian, he doubted his ambition for success would change in the slightest.
He heard the words that Julian didn't say as well as the ones that he did, understanding fully what Julian was trying to put across. "That's simply a hand that fate dealt you. It doesn't have to define you." He lifted Julian's chin, making him look him in the eyes. "It doesn't define you." There was more to Julian than simply being Malkavian. Micah was sure about this.
Micah was right. It didn’t have to define him. And more and more lately it didn’t feel as much as it had to him once. Even as Julian still struggled with it, and he always would, it didn’t feel like it was all he had to offer. It would take more time for him to not fall into times when he felt like it was— like he had today with feeling like he should have more answers than he did. That he had to be able to figure it out not only to define him, but to make up for the fact that he was broken. Like it had to serve a purpose.
Meeting Micah’s eyes, Julian nodded. No matter what this undefinable thing was between them was, unlike his relationship with Dorian, Julian knew that no matter how or when it ended—because nothing lasted forever, not even the so called ‘immortal” Kindred— he would come out of it having grown for the better. “I know. Well, I know that now. Because you’ve helped me see that.”
Julian couldn’t help but run a hand up the back of Micah’s neck and close the distance to brush his lips over his in a kiss of gratitude.
A kiss that Micah returned, deepened, tongues tangling as he sought the by-now familiar taste of Julian. Even for them, there wasn’t a guarantee. Immortality was only as much as you made out of it; the slightest misstep could still end your existence—this time for good. Nothing was certain. The only thing that they could count on was the here and the now: the taste of Julian’s lips and the feel of his body moving against Micah’s.
“Is this all? Just a kiss?” Teasing, with plenty of mirth in his eyes. “As thanks it seems a little lacking.”
"What? Are you saying that my kisses are not good enough on their own?" Julian teased back. He knew there were plenty who found themselves put off by the Ventrue even before he was Primogen. But that had never been Julian. Even when he had first been drawn in like a moth to a flame knowing he could get burnt he had never felt what many others did.
Which was probably why he dared to be bouncing quarters off of Micah’s ass the other night just to prove he could to both of their amusement.
"Though I do suppose that I did say this visit could be both business and pleasure. Now that business is out of the way—" Julian drew Micah in for another kiss while at the same time playfully loosing his tie as he shifted and settled into a better position on Micah’s lap.
To Which Micah simply smirked, his lips curling in amusement. “Now we can get down to the real order of business.” He snaked an arm around Julian’s waist, drawing him close, while the other reached for the waistband of Julian’s trousers, freeing him up without any disguise of his intentions. “How would you like to be fucked tonight, Mr Blackwood?”
It was Julian’s turn to be amused. "I have to choose only one?" Youthful Kindred blood had him already hard and ready when Micah freed him. "When there's so many good choices?" Julian finally pulled the tie free before his fingers started to purposely undo the buttons of Micah’s shirt slowly, his brow creased as if he was considering his options.
"You could bend me over your desk and fuck me," Julian suggested as his fingers toyed with that last button on Micah's shirt. Popping it free, his fingers drifted downwards to start work on the belt next. "Or we can stay right here and I can ride your cock instead. Since just a kiss seemed to be a lacking thank you."
Micah’s smirk only widened. “Both, then.” He said like he had only decided there and then, fingers digging into the curve of Julian’s ass to put their plans into immediate action. “Both can definitely be arranged.” As he leaned forward to capture Julian’s lips in a brutal kiss.
And if any at his office that night heard the sounds and screams that threatened to bring the walls down, no one dared to make a mention of it the next day.