Amadeus Lazarus (sanguinemagic) wrote in nybynightic, @ 2021-02-20 21:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | activity type: log/thread, character: amadeus lazarus, character: liam zhu |
At least that’s what Amadeus was hoping and it wasn’t some elder Kindred that had let all of this get the better of them and went wight instead of in a torpor.
Now that he was thinking of torpors—one didn’t sound so bad.
Especially considering he was out here doing this alone. Amadeus enjoyed getting his hands dirty. Enjoyed the hunt but a bit of backup wouldn’t have been a bad thing to have. But the Sheriff was now alone in every sense of the word including the lack of hounds the city now had. No primogen council. No hounds. It was turning into a theme.
And apparently, more wights than he had originally thought as he turned a corner and discovered it was not just one or two wights has he had originally thought but a whole pack. Amadeus knew he could slip away and at least go get some of Micah’s men to help him clean this up but he had a lot of pent-up aggression he needed to work out and he didn’t want them getting away in the meantime.
Oh the excuses he told himself.
It was without a second thought that he stepped out into the open and flung a bolt of fire towards the group that was in the middle of ripping apart a body in the midst of docks down in the warehouse district. At least now he had their attention. “Didn’t your mothers teach you better table manners than that,” he asked before they were on him. Amadeus welcomed the chance to use his body as a weapon instead of his magic for the moment.
Battle in such an open space was both easier and more difficult simultaneously. Easier because of the maneuverability. Difficult because the openness meant you were exposed—easily spotted by anyone else; friend or foe.
It didn’t matter how powerful Amadeus was—and as old as he was, he was very powerful indeed—but a pack of wights as many as there were at the docks that night was more than enough to pile on a single Tremere and make life very difficult indeed. No matter how many Amadeus pulled apart, more kept coming. And without an end in sight, it was only natural to tire, to have his attention lapse and a stray wight’s savage claws—no longer humanoid—rip into an exposed back as it pulled Amadeus down with a ragged, animalistic cry—
—only to have it’s brains explode in a shower of blood and gore. And in the darkness, when the shower of bodily bits settled, a single figure stood in the dim light of the docks, the severe, dark trenchcoat he was wearing outdone only by the piercing look in his eyes as he fired two more straight shots at two other wights closest to Amadeus, felling them instantly.
For a moment, nothing.
And then, eerily, a smile from Amadeus’ memories. “Hello, Jiang. You called?”
It was just as well that he was laying on his back—albeit tore up and bleeding—as he peered up and saw that smile. As he heard that voice. It did the same thing it had done when he had heard it on the voicemail and turned his knees weak.
For a moment Amadeus lay there speechless—a rare feat for the Tremere.
Then he glanced over at the dead wights and gave a sigh like he wasn’t overly bothered by the sight of the lover he had once disappeared on and hadn’t seen since. Even as Amadeus knew that the Malkavian would know very different. “Well, there went my night's entertainment.”
He sat up and couldn’t help but wince as he did. He needed to heal. Would be able to do so quicker with magic than the natural way. But first he had to stop his eyes from traveling back to the ghost from his past that was standing over him. There was no point in saying that it was good to see the other, not with the way Amadeus’ eyes drank in the sight of him.
Any further discussions would have to wait however as more wights came around the corner. It seemed that Amadeus’ entertainment for the night wasn’t as gone as he thought it was. Not when they smelled fresh blood on the air as if the Sheriff was suddenly on the menu and it was drawing them out from the corners they had been lurking in. It caused Amadeus to quickly jump to his feet with ease despite his wounds and fling a bit of fire one’s way. No matter what the flavor of undead they never cared for fire but wights even more so.
In the face of an ever increasing number of wights closing in around them, it came to be somehow that here they were, centuries later, standing back to back--Amadeus with his fire and Liam with his guns now instead of steel.
Of all the ways that Liam envisioned their reunion to be, fighting off wights in the dead night of New York was not one of them. He felt acutely the sense of mismatch--the seamless way they worked together, a bullet stunning one wight to the left, enough so Amadeus could call fire down on a wight stunned still and incinerate it in the next second, against the ice cold fury that he felt in his chest, waiting to be unleashed.
But the anger would have to wait. In the face of yet more wights piling on them, Liam's instinctive reaction to seeing one reach for Amadeus with angry black claws was to wrap an arm around the Tremere, circling him out of harm's way, with his free hand coming up to fire a shot with his pistol. Double guns had been a habit of his since about a century ago and had saved him in a tight spot on several occasions. "You were a lot of things. But reckless was never really your style," Liam said to the figure pressed tight in his arms, even as he fired off three more shots.
For the moment it was like nothing had changed even when in reality everything had. For now though it was easy enough to pretend otherwise. Especially wrapped in Liam’s arm as he was—leaving him with a clear view over the slightly taller Kindred’s shoulder to the wights that were coming up from behind him. Amadeus slid his arms around the other’s wasit so that he could send a line of fire their way.
“Call it old age. Or boredom.” Or the fact that really, at this point what did he have to lose. “You can’t tell me you're particularly bored right now, can you?”
Not when they only thing keeping them from getting swarmed right now was the flames. The wights were a lot like a pack of rabid wolves that way. It was probably the fact that all that was left of them now was the inner Beast and it’s primal instincts they were ruled by. Even in a Kindred that part of their brain said it was to be avoided. Unless of course you were Amadeus who played with it far too often.
For a moment, some of that anger flashed through in Liam’s eyes. His answer was a curt—”There’s a process for that sort of thing.” Referring to torpors, no doubt, or a vacation. Anything except what Amadeus was doing now, which was a few hairs short of a suicide run. He fired another two shots in quick succession, before jerking Amadeus aside roughly as another five rushed at them to take the empty pockets of spaces that the dead had freed up.
He’d forgotten how annoying wights could be—brainless creatures that they were.
Clicking on empty, Liam paused long enough just to reload another magazine, firing with his other hand when nearby wights took it as a chance to attack. “What happened to your Hounds? Did you piss all of them off too?” But even the question itself was a giveaway. A display of how much Liam kept track of what was happening in New York, or at least that he had read up on before coming here, a few days after Amadeus’ inexplicable call from the presumed dead.
Amadeus gave a snap of his fingers so that all of the already dead wights went up in flames and burned brightly in the dark as a way to ward off the rest of the wights and act as a barrier. It was an act that made it very clear that he could have easily wiped out the whole docks of the live ones in the same manner but didn’t. Instead he flung out his hand and set two of them flying back.
“Let’s just say that we’re having some personnel and staffing issues at the moment.” Though Liam wasn’t completely off the mark when he asked that. Most had fled on their own lacking the courage or desire to stay behind in fight in what they no longer saw as their war. The one who did—Amadeus had ended up having to be cruel and heartless to anger him enough to leave.
Something that had come all too naturally to him.
A tightening of his fist and one of the wights exploded in a bloody display of power. “Why? Are you looking to apply for a job?”
An age ago, he would have found all that display of power exhilarating. But now, Liam recognised it for what it was--a reluctance for Amadeus to face his own problems; a distraction. He eyed Amadeus for a moment--no, Jiang. Even though that was no longer the name he went by.
"You couldn't afford me," Liam pointed out with a slight arch of his brow.
And there was a truth in his words too, if Amadeus had done his research. As a Courtier in Boston, having been deeply rooted in the city's political structure for almost a century, Liam was coming to New York from a position of relative power. He wouldn't have had to either, not until he received that particular call. Eyeing the remnants of the charred bodies, Liam nonetheless focused on what had to be done first, "Let's get out of here, there's no telling how many are still lingering in the area."
“Hang on.” As one of the bodies hadn’t been completely reduced to ash just yet, Amadeus stepped closer and looked at the tattoos that covered the arm. It looked like one of those from the Anarchs that Roman had sent those files over on. The ones who had been going missing. Was someone purposely making wights out of the Anarchs or was there something more there. They knew from what they had pulled from the former herald that the SI had at least been using them as guinea pigs for their formula they had poisoned the Circulatory System’s blood supply with.
The Sheriff jerked the arm off the rest of the charred body and tucked it under his arm. Maybe there was something they could learn from it.
To which Liam merely raised an eyebrow but let it pass without comment.
Then he held out a hand in offering to Liam. “Do you prefer the slow way or the quick way?”
It was easy to fall back into old habits, easier than it had any right to be, for Liam to reach out and take that hand outstretched. And even the jerk of a feeling somewhere behind his navel that came with Amadeus’ unique brand of teleportation magic felt familiar, like simply turning a corner and finding—home.
The cold that simmered deep within clamoured to be released. But Liam waited with the typical impassiveness that always displayed on his face.
Amadeus’ place was nothing like he imagined it to be. As flashy as the Tremere was dressed—and despite what many expected his haven to look like—it was warmer and with more character than most would expect.
For the moment his guest was forgotten as the elder Tremere made his way into the kitchen and opened the mostly empty fridge to toss the arm in there. The only other things that were in there was a couple of packs of blood for emergencies. They were still making sure what was left of their supplies were safe to consume.
“I’d offer you a drink but we’ve had a few issues lately with our blood supplies.” He was tempted to offer Liam a drink straight from the source, namly himself, but he didn’t know what the game was here just yet.
Instead he focused on removing his bloody coat and shirt before the blood could dry and cause the fabric to stick to his skin and to make it easier to focus on healing his wounds. As he removed his shirt it made the necklaces and amulets hanging around his neck more noticable—including a certain jade one. “Why are you here, Ling?”
Keen eyes caught the flash of emerald, peeking through beneath the cloth. But more than melancholia, it produced a fresh wave of anger, along with the sickening, raw feeling of an exposed wound being torn open once more to reveal the festering mess inside. The question—too—brought with it a sharp, acerbic taste on his tongue. And Liam responded in kind; a reflex out of pain. “Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?”
He stood across from Amadeus in the kitchen, a couple of steps apart. But they could have been worlds apart for all the distance that existed between them right then. Here was a man that he thought he knew—that had fought by his side, that had won wars together with him—but it turned out that he never knew Jiang at all. Not if he could have left and stayed gone all these years, until an enigmatic phone call a few nights ago with a message that sounded like leaving all over again.
A fresh wave of regret washed over Amadeus as he stared up at Liam, regret that he could no doubt feel. He always was good at picking up the emotions of others, especially Amadaus’ own. “I did remind you what a selfish creature I am,” Amadeus pointed out. Though once there was a time the other man in front of him had came to come before all else until the Tremere had let something else get in the way. That selfish nature having ruined everything. That a belief that he was doing Ling a favor by not drawing him into the mess Jiang had created.
“I did mean everything I said on the phone though. Which I know doesn’t make anything better. Or really mean anything at all considering it was just a phone call.” It barely scratched the surface of making anything better. Amadeus could see that cold anger in Liam’s eyes even from here and he knew he deserved every bit of it.
"A phone call," Liam allowed, though his tone itself was hardly agreeable. "From someone who was supposed to have died centuries ago." But of course, Liam had known that there was whisperings of an oriental Sheriff that had popped up in New York not too long ago, even though knowing and hearing from the man himself was two entirely different things. His arms were folded and even if his guns were kept safely out of sight now, he still looked ready to kill and deadly lethal in that black trench and the ever-present scowl on his face.
"And for what? To watch your suicide mission?" The words were hard to hear, but they belied an underlying disapproval stemming from a place they had been before—where they cared about each other's survival and had worked so hard together to get to where they were. But all that was gone now. Amadeus had seen to it personally. Yet even if Liam was supposed to be angry—way angrier than he was now—seeing Amadeus fighting alone, his back unguarded, was enough to have taken most of the bite out of him.
If Liam decided right then to put an end to him for what he had done, Amadeus couldn't say that he'd make any move to stop him. After all it would be fitting if in the end it was Liam who made sure he really was dead after allowing him to think for so long that he had met his final death.
"No. I meant what I said on the phone even if I wanted to say more. In that moment when I could have gone up with everyone else it was only you I had thoughts of. Old regrets mixed with new ones. The fact that I was too much of a coward that I never got to see your face again or tell you that I was sorry. That I had been too afraid to find out your fate after I left." That after centuries he still loved him. He had been wrong when he had called Ling his first love. It went much deeper than that. Time had proven that the one before him would always hold his cold, dead heart in some way.
At the same time Liam likely wasn't wrong about this being a suicide mission. They were fighting a war with limited resources. "I knew when I called that the odds of surviving fighting for this city are slim. Which is why I was saying goodbye."
If Amadeus had been hoping to cool the fire, that comment did the very opposite.
Liam was across the space between them in a flash, slamming Amadeus against the counter, fingers bunching in the fabric of the coat Amadeus wore as he held him up by the collar, still fresh with the scent of drying blood somewhere. His eyes were a glittering, fierce ebony, echoing the explosive rage he’d felt the moment he heard those words from Amadeus. “I don’t want your fucking goodbye.” The words were spat out, leaving a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.
Centuries, he’d waited and wondered. And Amadeus had the audacity to come back into his life only to leave a trail like that behind.
In that moment Amadeus realized just how over the edge he was. Just how twisted he had to have become because in the face of all the rage—all that heated rage—all he could think of was wanting to push that trench coat off of Liam’s shoulders and then kiss him. Rage and violence and that’s all he could think of. Though in his defenses even when fully angered it wasn’t far how good the other looked. It made Amadeus want to laugh at himself but he didn’t, not when it might make Liam think that the Tremere likely had lost his mind.
Maybe—after everything—he had.
“But you want something or otherwise you wouldn’t be here,” he pointed out. And considering the rage he was faced with Amadeus was pretty sure it wasn’t a simple apology that Liam was after.
That was the thing. And Liam knew it too. Except he didn’t know what it was. He had been broken in the centuries after, thinking Jiang dead but never really knowing. Not for sure. And even when whispers of a new Sheriff in New York surfaced, there had been too much holding Liam back from finding out for good, even with the resources at his disposal. And now, with Amadeus bringing everything down to crash in front of him, giving an ultimatum like that—Liam felt lost and adrift. Cut loose once more.
“Why are you fighting for this?” He asked instead, without softening his grip. “You’ve never had a problem cutting loose and leaving before.”
That’s where Liam was wrong. After—yes. It had been easy enough to leave and go from place to place before he had settled in New York. But cutting loose and leaving before that had not been easy. It had very much felt like cutting out his own heart and leaving it behind when he had left before. When he had left Ling.
Still, the answer to that question was an easy one.
“Simple. This is all I have left. A burning need to see them pay for what they have done to this city and to hang on to the power that I have here. What do I have out there but to start all over again after a hundred years of power here and to do it all alone?” Amadeus shook his head. “Better to go down fighting and possibly burn the city down around me as I do.”
The taste of bitterness was back. To think that power was worth staying for in Amadeus' mind when he--Ling, as he had been then--and the empire they'd built together had not.
Liam's fingers finally loosened their hold--slackened from disbelief, if nothing else--his face an expression of mixed rage and regret, giving an incredulous bark of laughter, coarse and bitter even to his own ears. "Did you not have power? Back then? Was what we had then not enough for you?" Was I not enough, he didn't say. But the embittered tone was all the question enough, written in the lines of his face, in the way he let go of Amadeus as abruptly as he'd taken hold earlier--as if it burned him to be touching Amadeus any longer.
“No,” Amadeus answered, knowing it wouldn’t be what Liam wanted to hear but he wasn’t going to lie to him. Not like he had lied to himself for so long. Pretty lies to offer comfort were not what the one he had left deserved to hear. Not after what he had done. “It wasn’t even a matter of the power we had built together. It was a matter of the greed for power of the Tremere blood that drove me, To gain more of it. When I did it put not only myself in danger but you as well. So I left. When I shouldn’t have.”
Amadeus knew this was all too little, too late. He had done the damage and there’d be no going back and fixing it now. He had chosen the power of the blood over the one he had cared about the most. Even the excuse that he had been young was actually no excuse at all.
It was little wonder the Tremere clan got called the things they did and were said not to be trusted.
“It wasn’t fair of me to call after all this time.” Then a moment later, “it wasn’t fair of me to have left.”
No it wasn't. It hadn't been fair then and it wasn't fair now. Liam had never really been given a choice for any of this. So now when he was asked to decide what he wanted--he simply didn't have an answer.
But where did that leave them?
"And even knowing that, you keep doing these things." But Amadeus was right. Liam had known what the other was like. Full of himself. It had been part of the charm, back then. Even if it had been their ultimate downfall in the end.
He stepped back, putting a feet's distance between them now that he had his wits about him once more. "But you called anyway." And I'm here now, he didn't say. "So what is the plan?" Then, after a brief pause, he narrowed his eyes at Amadeus. "There is a plan, right?"
Amadeus gave a self-deprecating smile as he looked at Liam. “I tried changing. Thought I had. In the end it seems you can’t change the nature of the beast.” Or maybe it was because he had been looking in all the wrong places. A poor man’s substitute for what he had lost and thought he had moved on from. Now he supposed he’d never know for sure.
Liam was in front of him but he had never felt farther out of reach than he did now.
“As for a plan, it’s been a step by step process.” Amadeus sighed. “We’ve reclaimed the tower, the city, from anyone else who would take it but we’re seriously outnumbered at this point. No council. No hounds. We had to execute a large number of the court that remained after discovering it was one of our own that betrayed us. The SI hit us hard and rebuilding is slower going than is ideal.”
Everything about this situation aggravated Liam. The numbers were against them. The resources too. Surely everyone else could see this. Everyone except Amadeus. Or perhaps even him, but then he was going into it with a death wish. Which was something Liam didn't want to examine too closely at the moment.
"It's not a situation most usually come back from." Because it was never Liam's style to mince his words or hide from the truth. "They've obliterated cities bigger than New York." But they both knew that. The words were on the tip of his tongue, Liam could feel them dying to burst forth from his lips. Come with me to Boston. But they never made it past his lips. They were not there yet. Liam didn't know if they ever would be.
"What do you need? Men?" Resources that Liam, as Count, would have access to.
“Micah has men though even they only stretch so far.” Amadeus had never been one to keep retainers or ghouls. Too much of a bother if you had asked him. Even when he held Chinatown he had depended on contacts and resources and general loyalty rather than keeping anyone actually tied to him. Something in hindsight he maybe should have.
“I’m stretched too thin. I’m still acting as sheriff because I chased off the one I could have forced into the position while acting as Micah’s right hand. Now as the most powerful Tremere left New York I have the fucking chantry to deal with as well.”
How long had he wanted Sethius out of the way only to have to deal with this mess now.
“What we need are experienced Kindred. One of our largest assists right now is a Malkavian who isn’t even a century old yet trying to mentally search a city while at the same time trying to continue to root out anyone who may act out against our new Prince and who knows how long the cracks are going to hold.”
What they also needed was fucking ass hounds who didn’t keep tucking tail and running.
“We’re going to have to make allies and we’re going to have to make them quickly.”
Liam fell silent for a moment. The quiet hanging between them like a cloud of foreboding. Because even if Liam had given voice to the question and Amadeus, subsequently, the answer, there still hadn't been a formal request from the man himself.
He folded his arms across from Amadeus, regarding the Tremere with flinty eyes.
"And how can you be sure that they'll be allies?" The question was pointed, and also in part alluding to their current situation. The chasm that stood between them was far too wide to be breached in a day. But at the same time, he had come. And for all that he hated Amadeus' guts, he was right that he wouldn't be here if it had been a call from anyone else.
That had to still have counted for something.
“That’s always a problem isn’t it. Knowing for sure. Even a Malkavian such as our Julian has his limits.” Even Liam did though he was of a far greater age and power than Julian was at the moment. “And there’s very few I trust nowadays. It was a short list to begin with and now—”
One he had helped install as the new prince of the city. The other stood in front of him.
Maybe he really had become that big of a fool before for all he knew Liam was here to destroy what remained. And yet—
“I won’t ask you to stay and help. New York has proven to be nothing but a death trap to those who do and I refuse to be the one who asks and then watches you die because I did. But also, I won’t try and stop you if you do decide to stay.”
Liam lifted an eyebrow, clearly illustrating what he thought of that. As great as New York was as a city, Liam's investment was not here. Throwing more at a neighbouring city in the hopes that there would be benefits from it was foolish at best.
No, there would only be one reason why he stayed.
And that was the man before him now.
But if Amadeus wanted him to bring that all out in the open, to behave as if this was something Liam could have chosen for himself—because fuck that—then that was exactly what Liam was going to do. "And why would I?" He asked, with an arched brow. And then repeated, again, clear enunciating each word. "Why would I stay?"
It wasn't about punishing Amadeus at this point. It wasn't about the humiliation or shame or the thousand and one things that Liam could have thought of when it came to paying back the pain of abandonment. It was about needing to hear it from Amadeus himself--whatever this thing was left between them that he had destroyed so many years ago.
Amadeus knew they were at a crossroads. He could either push Liam away for good and never again have to worry about any grief or pain that he might cause him. Or Amadeus could cut himself open before Liam and give him the chance to once and for all rip his heart from his chest while he bled out in front of him.
Liam deserved to be given at least that much didn’t he? True even if he decided in the end that he’d prefer to stab Amadeus with a knife and twist it deep.
Because in that, it was no more than Amadeus deserved.
This time it was Amadeus who closed the distance between them, crowding Liam in until he’s options of escaping being this close to the Tremere became so very limited. But he didn’t touch him. Not yet.
“Because I still love you, Ling. I thought I could move on, thought I had, and then realized that I never will. My cold, dead heart is yours even after all these centuries and if you want to rip it out and take it then do so.” Amadeus paused as he searched Liam’s face before continuing. “And you must still feel something or you wouldn’t be here. Even if it’s closure and if that’s what you need then that’s what I’ll give in whatever form it takes to do so.”
And just like that, Liam felt the pieces that had been wrenched out of him so many years ago finally slide back into place. It wasn’t the end of it—not by far. Large portions had been ripped away, left rotting at the center. But smaller pieces of a whole were coming together. And Liam was willing to take what he could get.
For a moment, he stood very still. Not moving, not saying a single word. And then, grabbing Amadeus’ chin with his index and thumb—”You’re an asshole. You know that, don’t you?”
Before his lips met Amadeus’ in a searing kiss, arms wrapped strong around the other’s waist, teeth and tongue clashing as he fought Amadeus in this too—punishingly, now, yes. Because Amadeus had robbed him of this, for so many years. With seemingly no good reason.
It was a statement and question that would have had Amadeus smirking and giving a shrug in answer if his mouth wasn’t suddenly occupied a second later.
Nothing else mattered right now because he was pressed up against Liam and had the taste of him on his lips and tongue once more. A taste that he had somehow never forgotten. And the brutal way that they were kissing, lips and tongues were getting nicked on teeth and fang causing the taste of blood to enter in. A welcomed taste that had Amadeus moaning into the punishing kiss.
It served as a reminder to Amadeus of what a fool he had been to have ever let this go. To think he could he could ever exist and not be in these arms.
All those years ago, there had been this too. This in the large courtyard back in the Shen manor, this in the snow-topped mountains of Hubei province, this even in the Forbidden Palace. So many memories fought to surface now, amidst Liam’s splintering reality—how long had he thought of this? How long had he believed this lost to him forever?
He stepped forward, pushing Amadeus back against the counter, the edge of it digging into Amadeus’ back. His free hand divesting the Tremere of his cloak, slipping it off those shoulders, ghosting against the firm muscles beneath that thin layer of fabric.
A part of him was still angry. Very much so. But the larger part of him couldn’t stop even if he tried. Like a train wreck with brakes ripped out, he was headed for certain destruction—as had always been the case with Amadeus.
It had always amazed Amadeus how slow back then it had taken them to get where they had been. Especially when once they had finally given into what had always been there between them that it had been like this. All it took was a spark to ignite the passion between them and make it seem like they weren’t so dead after all.
He had been a fool to have walked away from this.
He had been an even bigger fool to think he’d ever find this with anyone else.
There was only his Ling and now he was finally getting to run his hands up the hard plains of that chest that he remembered so well and push that trench coat off his shoulders like he had wanted to earlier. And if Liam needed to focus some of that anger into this then so be it. It didn’t matter as long as he didn’t stop. As long as he didn’t let go.