Julian Blackwood (synapticstatic) wrote in nybynightic, @ 2021-02-02 03:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | activity type: log/thread, character: julian blackwood, character: micah lucciano |
Tonight Julian had stayed in but that didn't stop him from searching and seeing what he could find. He had stretched his mind as far as he could, whispering across what minds he came across and dipping in to see what lurked beneath. He wasn’t sure how long he had searched but finally he had reached his limit. Any more and he risked causing his mind to snap and getting lost within it.
Coming back to himself, he grabbed a mug of freshly delivered blood before heading towards the small office that Micah was using to see if he had came up with anything. Julian’s eyes were tired and strained looking as he leaned in the doorway and took a drink from the mug in his hands while watching the Ventrue.
These days the work seemed never ending for all of them. Julian missed the couch in Micah’s office that he’d normally curled up on while waiting for him to finish his work. The empty chair didn't look nearly as comfortable.
"Still nothing."
Micah barely looked up from the tablet he was currently studying. The entire apartment was a mixture of both their scents, familiar and unobtrusive. And even if the place that Micah had invited Julian to move into prior to this had been initially some place that he considered his own space, this apartment now was as much his as it was Julian’s, based on how much time they were both spending in it—even if it was, hopefully, temporary.
“These things take time.” Far more time that they had or could afford, if Micah was to be honest. But he had witnessed for himself how much effort Julian had expended trying to trace down this mole that they had—trying to plug the holes of information leakage before they lost anymore than they could afford to. Micah didn’t want to place any more stress on Julian if he could avoid it.
He pulled up another email he had, on the computer screen this time, and typed a quick reply. Encrypted, of course. They still had no idea how far the leak went.
But when he was done with that, he did look up, spotting the lines of tiredness on Julian’s face. “You should get some rest. I have people out there. If there is anything that comes up, I’ll let you know.”
"You could come rest with me. Take a break, curl up on the couch, let me nibble on you a little bit," Julian suggested.
He looked down at the blood in his mug and scrunched his nose up in distaste as he drank some more of it. It wasn’t that it was awful, it just wasn't what he preferred. The taste of kine versus kindred. The way he was burning through blood pushing himself the way he was though left him having to drink some kine blood on top of drinking from Micah.
A sigh followed as he lowered the mug once more. "Things are too quiet." But maybe that was because he didn’t have visions or a broken Malkavian Primogen pushing in on him anymore. Now he was just left with his own drive to find them.
Micah caught the look on Julian’s face as he drank from his cup. If it had been anyone else, that look wouldn’t have mattered. But Micah found that image stuck in his mind even as Julian continued on without any idea the ripples he had set off with that simple action. The words that Amadeus threw at him a couple of days ago in this very room came back to him now, and Micah found himself standing up, setting aside his tablet and his emails for the moment to stand beside Julian in a few quick strides.
Up close, the signs of exhaustion were even more obvious. The dark circles under his eyes, the lack of the usual brightness in his expression. Micah stared, lifting a hand to cup Julian’s cheek, almost unwittingly.
“If you fall, I’ve got no one to scour Elysium for me.” Even if the words he didn’t say with that—Don’t fall, don’t let anything happen to you—rang through loud and clear. Julian had established himself an important and irreplaceable presence by Micah’s side, that much at least was evident
It was almost impossible for Julian to not lean into that touch. Not when he craved it the way that he did. "I just want it to be over with so we can go home."
He wasn’t sure just when he had started to think of Micah’s apartment as home but there it was. Sure, they were both here as well. They may have even fallen into similar routines. Still there was something about the fact that they were hiding out here that kept it from feeling like a place that was home.
Julian started to give Micah a tired smile when he suddenly didn't feel right. He could feel something wet on his face and reached up to wipe blood away from his nose. Worried eyes settled on Micah instead as pain started to spread through his body. "Micah…"
He felt rather than heard it. The way Julian stumbled, the blood trickling down his face. Micah’s arm was around him in an instant, instinctively, without hesitation. But that was even without paying attention to the sudden ice that crept into his veins at the sight of Julian in distress—of something obviously not right. “Julian.” His voice was even, but even then, there was a sense of urgency.
Micah’s eyes became dark, intense. He scooped Julian into his arms and set him on the chair, not allowing Julian to take a single step. Not until he figured out what was wrong.
Julian’s skin had taken on a sickly pale colour. And Micah wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before. He took the cup from Julian the moment he’d set Julian down on the chair, wanting to set it down on the desk beside them. But in the midst of that, he caught sight of the blood—dark crimson, and a whiff of something.
He brought it closer to his nose.
And then it hit him.
Someone’s head was going to roll for this.
He turned back to Julian, voice firm but urgent, lifting his wrist to the Malkavian’s lips. “You need to drink.”
Julian didn't immediately latch on the way that he normally would have. It was getting hard to think. Drink? The way that he felt he couldn't imagine more blood being the answer right now.
A moment later and he was pushing Micah away from him as his young Kindred body was determined to purge itself of the tainted blood in his system. Julian barely managed to make it out of the chair and onto the floor before he vomited up some of the blood.
It was something that only served to make the pain worse and made Julian feel even weaker.
Out was definitely better than in. But given that Micah had no idea what exactly had been in the blood, that was by no means satisfactory enough for him. Already, he recognised the signs of slowing, the way Julian’s eyes seemed unfocused instead of their usual, the way he couldn’t seem to register what Micah was saying. All signs of toxicity.
Not waiting for Julian to process things, Micah took matters into his own hands, slashing a vein on his wrist with a fang and holding it to Julian’s lips, forcing the blood bodily into the younger Kindred. “Drink.” A single word command, that Julian could hopefully still register. Although in his current state, even that was not a sure thing.
It wasn’t so much the command that registered in Julian’s brain. That seemed to have gone hazy in a way that was different than what his Malkavian brain was used to. It was hard to focus on anything but how cold he felt. He couldn’t even think enough to wonder if Kindred could feel cold like this.
Instead it was the familiar taste of the blood being forced on him that finally caused him to stir and swallow it. At first it wasn't much, he barely moved. Once some of it got down his throat he finally reached up and grabbed a hold of Micah’s arm while he drank.
Seeing Julian take the blood brought with it a sense of relief that Micah couldn’t shake. He wasn’t going to look into it too deeply at this point, but it motivated him to move—the faster the blood got into Julian, the better hisMO chances.
For them, Kindred, re-animation was something that blood and blood alone afforded them. To poison that—Micah didn’t want to think about the consequences right now. All that he could focus on was fixing this. Losing Julian was not an option.
Julian took more than he usually did, his body currently on autopilot as it replaced the tainted blood with something it could use. Not only use but the stronger elder blood was able to help fight off the effects in a way that his younger Kindred blood was unable to. The more he fed the better his color became and the stronger the hold on Micah’s arm was.
When he finally stopped with a gasp, Julian didn't let go of Micah’s arm. He kept hold of it as he turned and folded into the Ventrue, seeking comfort there while his blood slowly fixed what the other had done. That death like chill that had set in still lingered for the moment, the warmth—or as close to warm as any Kindred could get—being one of the slower things to return.
Micah, Julian sighed across his mind, afraid to try actually speaking just yet. Even that mental whisper was weak and shaky yet.
The blood had done its work. Micah’s blood. The urge to sigh was there again—strong. Micah resisted it. Instead, he stroked the side of Julian’s face—now back to its usual colour—with a thumb and carefully scooped Julian into his arms again.
“Rest,” Micah told Julian. Again with a similar firm tone and one-worded command. He lifted Julian like the other Kindred weighed nothing at all, casting one last glance at the cup of blood that Julian had been drinking from earlier. Thankfully not all of it gone. He would have someone look into it immediately. Once he had Julian settled in.
And then he left the room. This time, his destination was clearly the adjacent bedroom, where he gently laid Julian down on the large king-sized bed. He didn’t expect Julian to come fully to his senses for awhile yet. But with the normal colour returning to his face, Micah had hope that things were not as terrible as he’d thought initially.
He took out his phone from his pocket and typed out a few quick messages for things to be handled. All the while, never leaving Julian’s side.
It was a while before Julian did start to stir. At first he was confused and unsure of what had happened, much like he was sometimes after the cracks in his mind had been pressed on too hard. The blue eyes that for the moment only cracked open were unfocused as he tried to figure it out.
The only thing he was truly aware of was Micah’s presence. As he always did when he started to stir, he moved closer to the other Kindred. This time however his limbs felt like lead as he shifted on the bed.
As Julian’s mind started to refocus and he could recall what had happened he let out a groan. It had to have been the blood didn't it? It wasn’t as if he had left the apartment tonight for it to be anything else.
"I'm never eating anything but you ever again," he quietly muttered.
“That would be one option,” Micah replied, not missing a beat, even as he looked up from the message he’d finished typing and hit ‘send’. He did, however, look down intently at Julian’s face, carefully watching for any signs of lingering confusion or poor well-being. But seeing none, he found the pressure that had wound its way around him lightening up a fraction.
“How do you feel?” Micah didn’t expect wonders. But for Kindred, as long as they managed to get blood in the appropriate time for it to be effective, a lot of damage could still be restored.
That still didn’t explain how this could even happen in the first place however. Or what Micah was going to have to do to ensure that a similar thing didn’t ever happen again.
Chief among how Julian noticed about how he felt was how his already stretched mind felt even more stretched as did the rest of him to the point he didn’t feel like his skin fit anymore. He knew that was a weird way to think of it so he kept that to himself. It made him feel restless but at the same time he felt like a lead weight unable to move.
“Tired,” he mumbled instead as he let his eyes slide close again. “And like I’ve been hit by a mack truck.” Not that he had ever been hit by a truck to know what it felt like. Then again he had never been poisoned before either. It wasn’t an experience he cared to repeat. Nor did he want to think about what would have happened if Micah hadn’t been around.
How long would it have taken him to die like that?
How many other Kindred were out there tonight dying in that agony because they were alone and didn’t have the same access to powerful elder Kindred blood that Julian did? He was thankful right now that he was too weak to pick up on any dying cries that no doubt filled the city.
“They’re poisoning us like rats.” At least he hadn’t gotten to the point of conclusiving with it before Micah got him to drink from him.
It wasn’t a sentiment that hadn’t occurred to Micah, and it was obvious from the tightness in the look in his eyes that it was something that grated. “They’ll pay for this.” And it was as much a promise to himself as it was to Julian. Micah didn’t take failures lightly. And regardless of how they had gotten into the CS, it was still his responsibility. Along with whoever had been tasked with dispatch and production this round that had messed up to allow gaps in their security that had led to this.
“You should rest,” he told Julian, brushing the stray lock of hair away from the younger Kindred’s face. “There is much to be done to figure out where the holes are and plug them. I imagine there’s been more damage with this stunt as well. I need to find out exactly how much.” He got up to make a move.
Hopefully, his first few texts and calls had done some good. Although Micah doubted that if they’d already gotten into their distribution that it would have much impact simply recalling after the fact. The tainted batch was likely already out there causing as much damage as the SI had intended it to.
Julian mumbled his agreement into the pillows, the mingling of their scents on them a small comfort. He hated that Micah had to get up and leave but understood it as well. If Julian had been capable of it he would have been offering to help.
As it was he could barely lift his arm up right now to snag Micah’s before he could get too far away. Julian’s hand dropped down to his and gave it a weak squeeze.
"Thank you," he said softly, his eyes opening back open for a moment as he did. He knew he didn't have to keep thanking Micah for the things he did for him but did just the same.
Caught by the tenderness of the moment, or perhaps simply caught by Julian himself, the vulnerability he displayed in that moment or the underlying but lingering fear of losing this entirely in those long-drawn minutes waiting for this younger Kindred to open his brilliant blue eyes again. Whatever it was, Micah stopped regardless, looking down at their joined hands and at Julian himself.
And--the barest, briefest brush of lips against Julian's forehead--before it was gone.
Along with it, Micah disappearing out the door, leaving Julian to wonder if that had really happened or if he'd dreamt it in a post-poison stupor.