Julian Blackwood (synapticstatic) wrote in nybynightic, @ 2021-02-13 23:32:00 |
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A couple months ago he wouldn’t have believed that this would become the norm instead of the expectation. Before it had happened because it was just easier and more convenient after a night of Micah fucking him until sunrise. Slowly it had become more and more of a thing. Once Micah had moved him into his apartment with him, Julian had his own bedroom which was where all his clothes and other belongings ended up but he had taken to sleeping in Micah’s bed with him. And in the safehouse, even in the mornings when they just fell asleep because they had been too busy and distracted to do much else, Julian slept curled and pressed up against Micah even though the bed had plenty of room to do otherwise.
Now though things had changed again and Julian had to wonder if it meant things were going to change for them once more. Micah was prince of the city now and the young Malkavian had to wonder what that meant for them. Because there was indeed a them. At this point he knew that even Micah couldn’t argue that there wasn’t. It still didn’t mean though that Micah might decide it was better if Julian went back to the apartment instead of moving back to his place with him.
It was a thought that had Julian opening his eyes up finally so he could peer up and study the Ventrue while the younger Kindred over-thought things.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” The words were soft, teasing rumble, even before Micah opened his eyes. Wakefulness returned to him in a sudden rush—reanimation occurring in the span of a handful of seconds, as his body thawed from the dead and obeyed his commands once more. He may not be as quick to awaken, but the power and strength that this reanimated body possessed was immediately apparent. Here was a Kindred who could crush spirits with a mere look.
Although right now, Micah wasn’t interested in anything else except the warm body lying next to him.
He peeled open his eyes and fixed his gaze on Julian. “Should I ask what’s on your mind now, or are you going to fret about it some more?”
“Me? Fret? Would I do such a thing?” Julian might not get as lost in the cracks of his mind the way he used to it but it didn’t stop him from getting lost in his thoughts. Or having too many thoughts. And he might be more sure of himself—more sure of them—but it didn’t stop him from wondering just the same.
After all this was completely new for them both and Julian wasn’t fool enough to think this wouldn’t change things for Micah Just as becoming Primogen had.
“Give me ten more minutes to fret.” His smile was teasing even as the curious, worrying look in his eyes stayed there. Then the smile faded because they both knew he would continue gnawing on the thoughts on his mind if he didn’t speak them. “You’re prince now. What is that going to mean? For us?”
It was a question Micah should have known was coming, but it produced the usual sour distaste the moment it was brought up—something that would have flickered across on Micah’s expression as he fought the urge to sigh.
Instead he looked at Julian, a long searching look. “What do you think it means?” Or perhaps that wasn’t the right question. “What do you want it to mean?”
Julian returned that long searching look as he picked up on something new to fret about, wondering if he should have brought it up at all. It was too late now though. It was out there and there was no taking the question back.
“I don’t want it to mean anything. I don’t want it to change anything.” Julian dropped his eyes away from Micah’s for a moment. It felt too much like making a demand of Micah in admitting that. In being clingy in a way that he worried it would displease the elder Kindred.
Slowly he raised his eyes back up. “But I know having someone like me in your bed, at your side, now as prince is different than it was as a duke or a primogen.”
"Is it?"
It was a challenge, a redefining of everything that Julian thought he knew. Micah was someone who refused to be restrained by norms and precedents. What should apply to others didn't automatically apply to him--and why should it? He didn't intend to rule the same as others, to take a leaf out of their book and meet the same end that they had. It was a New Age. A time where he got to dictate the terms. Only him.
"What's so different about it?" He didn't sound upset. Or even impatient. Instead, he lay by Julian's side and explored the topic with the Malkavian like they were discussing their plans for the day.
“It’s—” Julian started and then stopped and blinked as he realized he didn’t really know how he figured it was different, just that it felt like it should be. Micah had different responsibilities now and Julian just figured his wants and needs would change with that.
He ran his fingers over Micah’s arm, fingertips tracing lazy designs over his skin as he chewed it over in his. “I guess it’s really not and that I’m just more worried it will cause you to want to put some distance between us. Not have me at your side so much.”
Micah understood the things that Julian wasn't saying as much as what he was. The insecurities and second-guessing that was innate in someone who had been abandoned once was not so difficult to comprehend. But the slight disappointment he had stemmed not from the fact that Julian was voicing these questions. But that he was still having them at all. After all these months together--it sometimes felt like Julian didn't really understand him at all.
"Have you ever known me to do things based on what others think?"
Julian shifted, moved from tracing his fingers over Micah’s arm to tracing them over his jaw instead. “No. And I know that my fears are unjustified and silly and probably rather disappointing for you that I’d still have any such lingering insecurities. It’s just—” He dropped his hand completely and burrowed back against Micah as he tried to collect his thoughts on just what he meant. To figure out the right words to use.
“I never expected this.”
Shifting again so he could once more look at Micah. “I never expected any of this when I made the choice to stay with you. I’m more lucid than I ever have been since I was embraced. And I don’t resent it anymore. Being embraced. Being Malkavian. It’s still no walk in the park but it’s manageable now without me having to be the one who’s being managed. You did that for me.”
It wasn’t the only thing that he hadn’t expected. “And I’m not the only one who’s changed.”
Micah, on the other hand, was quiet, listening to the things that Julian was saying with a quiet composure.
And when it seemed like Julian was done, at least for the moment, he simply looked back at the Malkavian and waited for the conclusion that he was driving at.
Julian looked back at Micah and stayed silent for the moment. He felt like he was cutting himself open and verbally bleeding while at the same time not getting out at all what he really felt like he needed to say. Wanted to say.
“I’ve never had something real to lose and I think that’s why I’m always afraid I will lose it. Especially when things change. Even when I know you won’t so easily put me aside, especially for what others think. Because if you cared about that, you wouldn’t have taken me away from Dorian in the first place.”
Those bright blue eyes stared back into Micah’s darker ones, begging for things he’d never dare ask out loud—the sentiments. The words and reassurances of what Julian had said he’d never be fool enough to expect but found himself increasingly wondering if it was possible it had happened after all— but was there in those eyes anyway.
Silence reigned for a moment.
Neither of them even breathed. It wasn’t like there was a need to. It was simply the lack of sound, the stifling silence in the wake of a question Julian had voiced even when he hadn’t said the words. Ones that couldn’t be withdrawn anymore.
Then, Micah moved. Sitting up in the bed, eyes distant and not looking at Julian. “And that knowledge alone is not enough.” It was a statement. Not a question. Because if it had been enough for Julian, there wouldn’t be this. All of this questioning and probing and feeling of being tested. Each time Julian had asked, Micah had given him nothing but the truth—had delivered in action, not words, what Julian meant to him. But it seemed that despite all of that, the insecurity that was hiding beneath was still insurmountable.
For a moment Julian just laid there and watched Micah. He knew then he had pushed too much, had wanted too much just once a verbal reassurance of what he knew. Finally he sat up and slid his arms around Micah’s waist and laid his head on his shoulder. It was a vast difference from when they had first started and he had been afraid to reach out for fear of Micah pulling away from him.
“It is,” he tried to assure him. But words were failing him. Words were becoming the problem here. He was starting to realize that Micah was probably right in not using them. So Julian tried something different inside. He reached out instead with his mind and slipped into Micah’’s, letting the Ventrue see that the Malkavian did see all the little ways that Micah showed him how he felt and that he did understand.
But knowing wasn’t the problem, as Julian had repeatedly demonstrated. It was everything else that was.
Micah’s grip was firm around Julian’s arms, the physical pressure helping to ground him and act as an anchor to rip himself from the telepathic constraints of Julian’s mental probing. It wasn’t a delicate process, instead it was brute force, a sudden show of power that rendered an end to all mental connections. But given that Micah was not a Malkavian himself, this was the only way he could sever the link.
And when he did, he simply stared at Julian.
“Then what are you asking of me?”
“Micah—”
But then Julian stopped and stared back. He was right in the fact that Micah had changed. Before he never would have cared. He never would have been this bothered and disturbed over a matter like this. It caused Julian to surge up and kiss him instead of giving him an answer right away.
“Reassurances and words that I thought I wanted to hear. Thought I needed to hear just once but I don’t. Because what you give me is enough.”
He brushed his lips along Micah’s jaw, begging his forgiveness. “You know change is...hard for me. So I guess I’m asking you this: forgive me when it pushes me into old insecurities that I should know better than to have.”
Julian’s fickle mind was something that would remain a part of him perhaps—just as much as Micah couldn’t completely erase the traces of Dorian’s influence that he sometimes still saw in the young Malkavian. But that was as much a product of Micah’s own doing as it was Julian’s. And despite all of this, Micah still wanted this strange, broken Malkavian that he had somehow picked up.
“I’ve been around for centuries, Julian,” Micah said instead, his eyes meeting the younger Kindred’s once more, searching for signs that Julian truly understood what he was saying. Instead of the momentary persuasion only to fall back into old habits the next turn. “I’ve learned that nothing else matters besides what we actually manage to accomplish and do.”
He looked down then, at the hands clasping his own tightly, not letting go. Never letting go. “I can promise you this: you’ll always have a place by my side. For however long you may want it.”
It was all the words that Julian found that really mattered. The one reassurance and promise that he needed. Because what were words of sentiment next to that. Not when it was all that Julian really craved and was the worry that had started all of this. A worry that he knew he shouldn’t have had but sometimes the contradictory nature of his mind got the better of him.
“Then you're going to be stuck with me for a very long time.” He waited for Micah to look back up at him before he continued. “Especially now that we're home.” It didn't really matter where they were as long as he was at Micah’s side but there was an added comfort in being back here as compared to the safehouse.
At first it looked like Micah had fallen back into silence. The same silence that overtook sometimes when he had thought long and hard about something. But finally, at long last, the corners of his lips twitched upwards in the slightest hint of a smile.
"Can't say I'd complain about that."