Malakai Hardy (hellsmessenger) wrote in tiberiusswann, @ 2011-11-06 18:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | hope, mal, malakai |
Tuesday February 17, 2009
Who: Malakai and Hope
When: Evening
Where: At an underground bookstore off campus
What: A random run-in which leads to a discussion of a man they both love
Hope had only just learned about this place right before the whole fiasco that had turned her into a teenager and this week seemed like as good a week as any to check it out. Perhaps she would run across a text that would prove valuable the next time hell broke loose at TJS because, let's face it, it would happen again. Kicking snow off of her boots, the bell dinged gently overhead as she opened the door into the front of the bookstore. Here it all looked ordinary, but after hanging her coat and dusting snow out of her hair, she found the man she needed to see about getting into the vaults.
The vaults were all underground and she had heard they were vast and there were hundreds upon hundreds of ancient texts to be perused. The pathway down was rather cold and musky, but the vault itself was climate-controlled to protect the valuable contents. The door air-locked behind her as she was shown in and faced with rows upon rows of precious books. She had no idea where to even start.
~~~ Mal had been to this particular store in the past, finding it useful for information about various races, and now seemed a good time to go back and scour the shelves for others tomes of use. He walked inside, the snow immediately melting from his jacket with his body heat. The hound settled the coat on the rack with several others and proceeded to the rear of the store, heading to the vaults with a wave to the shop keep.
Right outside the door, he noticed a familiar scent. So much for having a personal haven. Mal decided to ignore the vampire for the moment, striding through the shelves to the area housing books relating to Hell-creatures. Mal wanted to know what else existed that could kill him. This past week was too close.
~~~ Hope had already found herself engrossed in a volume dealing with some fairly arcane science when she heard the door to the vault open. She paid it no mind, not even really noticing the scent of who had walked in, though that was probably because she was still in recovery mode and the book was utterly fascinating. She skimmed through the pages and then saw a note that referenced another volume which made her curious about that book as well. Eyes on the lines of books, she rounded one of the stacks and found herself face to face, and were it not for the vibe that washed over her, nearly on top of the hellhound Malakai himself.
"Oh, hi. Sorry." Hope wasn't certain what else to say. While they had had conversations online a few times, they had never really had any face to face interaction because of the fact that he made her so very uncomfortable. It would be rude for her to turn around and walk away and ignore him completely though, right? So instead she just tossed out something meaningless along the lines of, "This place is amazing, isn't it?"
~~~ Mal was paying attention to his nose, trying to figure out who it was in the vault with him. It clicked right before she came around the corner. Mal managed to take a half step back to avoid the collision. "Good evening, Hope." He'd always wondered just how she would act if they ran into each other in person. Now he knew. Polite, but very nervous.
Turning to face the books, he went back to searching for a particular one. "You don't need to be quite that nervous. I haven't killed you yet." Yes, he glossed over her inane chatter, going straight for the heart of the matter.
~~~ "The yet isn't very reassuring," Hope retorted with a somewhat nervous laugh. It was one thing to have a run in with a hellhound, and quite another to have a run in with a hellhound you knew, and yet another still to have a run in with a hellhound you knew who also knew that you had had carnal knowledge of their lover, or fiance as the case may be. That thought in and of itself was enough to make her increasingly nervous.
"How's Max?" She asked after a moment of silence. She'd been concerned about the young one during all of this even if his race was meant to, well, keep her own in check, so to speak.
~~~ Mal shrugged a shoulder. "It's as reassuring as I can be. If you'd rather, I can start listing the ways I could kill you and haven't." Okay, now he was just being an ass and he knew it. But it was so much fun to toy with vampires.
"Max is fine now. Mellowed a bit from the past week, but I sure that won't last," he sighed. He kept hoping that any day down Max would calm down and act more like an adult. Of course, thinking about the younger pup reminded Mal that he needed to continue with training.
~~~ "No, I'm good thanks." The remark was rather deadpan. Yes, he was being an ass and it clear by the expression upon her face that she didn't entirely appreciate that fact. She knew he was capable of civil conversation, after all.
"Good," she replied simply, then added with some finality, "I'm glad you're all well."
~~~ Mal glanced her way, the apology in his eyes though he wouldn't say it. "We're not all well." He licked his lips, the only sign of nerves he'd give her. "I'm worried about Garret."
~~~ "About Garret?" The clearly piqued her interest. And why wouldn't it? She loved Garret Foss beyond words. The silly little slut had wormed his way into her heart and somewhere along the line she had fallen madly in love with him, though it was a far different sort of madly in love from what she'd experienced with Blake, but by no means any less intense. "Why? What's wrong with him? Is it his heart again?"
~~~ Shaking his head, Mal turned to lean against the book shelves, arms cross over his chest and a frown on his face. "No. Last week he had four fire users he was taking care of, all in my apartment. Max, June, Lloyd and myself. I don't think he slept. And now he's gone back to working security." It was implied that the pathfinder they both loved wasn't fully rested.
~~~ Hope exhaled a breath and shook her head. "Ridiculous man," she muttered under her breath. "Would you like me to fire him? Or maybe just suspend him for a bit? A sort of forced hiatus?" She quirked a brow slightly. And then she added more seriously, not that she wasn't serious about her willingness to do just what she'd said, "You know he doesn't deal well with things he feels. He's only trying to distract himself from having to process all the crap that's in his head now after what all's just happened."
~~~ Mal nodded. He knew how Garret worked just as well as Hope did. "I didn't make it any easier on him." The idea of Hope firing him was tempting, but it would come back to bite them both in the ass. So would the suspension. "Talk to him. See if you can talk him into taking a couple days off, even he drives into Boston to get away. If he won't do that, suspend his ass."
~~~ Hope knew how he worked because she was the same exact way. That's why she was here instead of at home right now. That's why she was submerging herself in anything and everything she could find to submerge herself in rather than face being alone with her thoughts. She had had enough of that to last her a lifetime while she'd been ill. "Of course I will," she replied softly, though clearly some other thought had managed to work its way into her head and she was now distracted by that in addition to all of this.
~~~ Mal was watching Hope, so he was able to note the exact moment she got lost inside her own mind. He gave her a couple minutes to think, taking the time to check out the books on the shelf opposite him. "What's on your mind?"
~~~ The question nearly made her jump, or his voice did rather, because she had thought they were done talking for the moment even though they were still standing as near to one another as they were. "Uhm.. the same thing that's on a lot of people's minds right now I would imagine." That didn't really answer the question, but she needed a moment to compose the sentence correctly. "Death. Being near to it is... not easy and I've been there more than once but..." She swallowed somewhat hard.
"Thinking about my own death doesn't bother me much now. It's improbable but possible that I will die someday but that doesn't matter much. If I die, I'll be dead, and that's that, so I won't really... feel it but..." She hesitated for a moment before she added, "Garret is so... human and..." Although Mal was perhaps the last person she would have ever imagined having this particular conversation with, it was clear that he was the one person who could relate and understand completely. "I can't stop thinking about how impossible it's going to be to someday have to live in a world without him in it." And that wasn't just probable but instead inevitable.
~~~ Mal understood exactly where Hope was coming from. Now that he was with Garret, he didn't want to lose him. It was part of the reason he was here doing research. "Garret's talked about turning vampire." Of all options, that was one Mal liked the least. He did not like the idea that his lover, his fiance and soon to be husband would fear to touch him.
~~~ "I would do it," Hope replied without hesitation. "If that's what he wanted, or if that's what it came down to but..." She frowned a little and shook her head. "He wouldn't be happy like this. He's too..." She couldn't think of the word for it. "And then there's also the whole fact that, well..." She eyed Mal like he knew what she meant and she was sure he did. "Vampire, hellhound... Not comforting in the least." But there was one thing to be considered about it, "Though that could make for some insanely great sex."
~~~ It was nice to know that if that became the only option, Hope would take on the responsibility, but it was even more comforting that she understood the problem with it. "Exactly. I've got a couple other ideas though." Of course, at the mention of sex, he gave her a thorough once over. "If that was something you wanted to try out, let me know. I've never had a vampire that way."
~~~ "Godric has a-" Hope started to say, but then she was cut off by the remark he'd made and she looked at him, a bit stunned for a moment and admittedly a little tongue-tied. "Uhm.. er.... I'm not sure how Garret would feel about that." That wasn't exactly a hard no like she would have expected to giving to a question such as that but it was still a hesitation, right?
~~~ "Garret knows how I feel. He's also smart enough to know that he can't control me. Just think about it." Finally pushing off the bookcase, Mal reached across to one of the books he'd been staring at. Flipping through the pages showed nothing of immediate use, so he put it back. "Godric has what?"
~~~ "But, it's.. I don't.." Hope hadn't expected him to just pipe in and basically offer to have sex with her. It was.. odd, and yet she should have expected that he would be somewhat like that because, well, he was with Garret and Garret was... Well he was nothing if not blunt. But leaving that topic behind, she blinked at the question. "What?" She had completely forgotten that train of thought all together.
~~~ Mal smirked. "I'd say 'hound got your tongue', but I don't just yet." Turning away, giving her a moment to pick her jaw off the floor, he glanced back through the shelves. Surely there was something here that would help. "You were saying something about Godric."
~~~ Hope gave him a soft glare before she retorted simply and not at all eloquently, "Shut up." She even nudged him with her shoulder, the first time they had ever touched which was definitely quite... odd. It was sort of like being with Fox only different. And that got her to thinking about it from a logical standpoint. If that turned out to be the only solution, Garret becoming a vampire, wouldn't it be wise for Mal to be prepared and to know what it was like to be with a vampire? She wasn't saying it had to be her necessarily but it should happen. Furthermore, however, if she were to become Garret's sire, which she would hope would be the case, shouldn't she know what her childe would ultimately be subjected to? This was kind of confusing and not at all what she had anticipated this conversation turning into.
"Oh," she shook the thoughts away and focused on what she had been intending to say. "He has a Djinn. But from what I've heard, she tends to screw things up so I'm not sure how much we would care to entrust her in a situation such as this. Devon's lucky he isn't like.... 90 years old or something after her and we still don't know yet if what she did to him is going to have any lasting unknown impacts."
~~~ Mal growled softly at the idea of a djinn. "Hasn't she caused enough trouble at the school?" Djinns, vampires, death. Surely there was a better alternative than these. Glancing over at Hope, he was surprised that she'd managed to stay around him this long without dashing away. Mal made a mental note not to go to a den with her. His reputation would be ruined.
~~~ "Yes, she has," Hope replied honestly. But still, "Scientists have been trying for as long as they have existed to figure out a way to cheat death and none have even come remotely close that I'm aware of. Granted, they've not all had the same resources as you and I but..." She pursed her lips in a small frown. "We have time though, don't we?" There was a ticking clock, sure, but it still had a few more hours left before it grew late.
~~~ Mal nodded. "We've got time." He still had his stash tucked away. Granted, it was made for his system, his body and there was no way of telling just how Garret would react to it. But it would slow things down, give them the time they needed.
~~~ Hope was looking at the shelf when the book she had been looking for all along caught her eye and she reached up to grab it. "So we prepare for worse case scenario while aiming for something better." This was her conclusion, of course now she had to figure out what all that meant.
~~~ "So it seems." Not that Mal really liked that idea, but he didn't have a better one just yet. So he focused on glancing through the shelves, pulling out a couple books that looked promising, both for himself and for Garret.
~~~ Hope opened the book and flipped through a few of the pages, her thoughts wandering though she was satisfied with the contents of the volumes. They would need further study before she was certain if they were of any real use. She closed the book after a moment though and held them both to her chest, turning with her back toward the shelves now and her lips pursed in thought.
~~~ Hope was being quiet and Mal left her to her thoughts, currently lost in his own. Could he stand to lose Garret after all that had happened? He played it off like it didn't matter, but he knew in his gut that losing Garret would be tantamount to being kicked out all over again. The hound refused to let that happen. He would die first.
~~~ Anyone that knew Hope at all would be able to look at her right now and know that she was in deep thought, that there were ideas rolling around behind those lovely deep eyes of hers. She walked off from Mal after a moment, just to get a little space to breathe, and then she started to pace. Finally she began speaking again, "If it turns out that the only way to save his life is to turn him and it turns out that I'm the one who does it which, if I'm being entirely honest, will be the case because I would stake a bitch before I let anyone else even think about doing it, then it would be my blood that would be inside him, my genetics."
Hope stopped pacing and turned to look at Mal. "Genetically, I am per-dispositioned, because of what I am, to be uncomfortable, highly uncomfortable, around you, and he would be too but.." There was a slight glint in her eyes as she added, "Genetics can be conditioned. It happens all the time. Most advances in science are MADE by way of genetic conditioning. So logically speaking, if I could develop a tolerance toward you, could overcome that discomfort with you, then it would stand to reason that my genetic offspring, ie Garret in this situation, would have the same conditioning." She looked at him for a sign that he understood where she was going with all of this. "We completely have a one up in this situation."
~~~ Mal had started flipping through one of his books, reading up more on the history of hellhounds and the various breeds through the centuries. Listed were the weaknesses, anatomically and genetically for his race throughout the eons. He was scanning a few of the more relevant chapters when Hope started talking. Finally, glancing up, he watched her pace. "Somewhat. The same urge that makes you want to run in fear, is the one that makes me want to hunt you. You're not overcoming one set of genes, but two."
~~~ "Yes, but... Think about behavioral conditioning. It works. If you want to exact a particular response, you present a particular stimuli over and over again and the same reward time and time again and eventually...." Hope gestured a hand out palm up. "It's nature," then the other. "Versus nurture." She shifted the two up and down. "And while nature can count for a lot, nurture IS capable of overwhelming nature with enough positive reinforcement." She lowered her hands. "So we've got two separate issues, your nature and genetic conditioning, and they both have the same solution."
~~~ Essentially, Hope was talking about conducting an experiment between the two of them in order to find a balance so that if it became necessary to turn Garret, there wouldn't be as much strain on their relationship. Mal wasn't ready to agree to that, but neither was he discounting it yet. Setting the books on a nearby table, he started walking towards Hope. Stalking more like. "And just how do you propose we do this?" He kept walking forward, wondering if she'd stand her ground or retreat.
~~~ Hope was either incredibly brave and strong-willed or she was naive and stupid. She wasn't sure which. But as he stalked toward her, in spite of every instinct inside of her to turn and run, she didn't. She instead stood up straighter and met his gaze unfailingly. "This is a good start." It would take more than just being around one another though. But tolerance didn't come overnight. It was something that had to be evolved slowly. "We work together to find an alternate solution. Two birds, one stone. We either find another way, which would be great, or we blaze a better path for the other."
~~~ "Hmm," Mal murmured noncommittally, moving to step behind her, close enough to brush against her. "And how exactly would you consider this experiment a success?" He'd dropped his head to whisper against her ear, then backed away. Right now, if he stayed much closer he'd be tempted to do more with less than pleasant results.
~~~ Hope immediately tensed as he moved around behind her. Of course there was one thing about Hope that would make this easier, at least for her. She had found here in recent years that she rather enjoyed things that were dangerous. And for her, Mal was certainly dangerous. She shivered a bit as he whispered in her ear and then cleared her throat. "How would it not be when there are really only two potential outcomes?" Three, actually. He could kill her, she supposed, but they could take measures to ensure that wouldn't happen in the beginning, right? Probably. "Either our collective genius and ingenuity comes up with a way to avoid the vampire issue all together or you learn how to be around a vampire without feeling too predatory and I prepare to pass on a genetic tolerance for your kind to my potential fledgling, your future husband."
~~~ Mal growled from somewhere behind her, the sound not so much a threat as a reminder. "Or it fails and one or both of us end up dead. Is that a risk you're willing to take?"
~~~ "For Garret?" Hope asked, then answered without flinching. "Always." She glanced back over her shoulder at him and informed him, "I don't love people lightly. I never have before and I refuse to start now."
~~~ Nodding, approving of her candor, Mal stepped closer again. "Alright. So how would you suggest we go about this? You said this was a good start, but I'm wondering what's next."
~~~ Good. She was glad he approved of it. If he didn't, she would lose a great deal of respect for him and thus far she was finding more than a few things to respect about him. "We find our limits and we push them," she replied simply. "Whatever those may be and however they may be pushed. But... we should do it safely," she added, and then moved so he wasn't behind her anymore because that was not comfortable for her at this juncture. "With a healer around who has an arsenal of.. whatever they'd need to prevent one or the other or both of us from... ripping each other apart."
~~~ Mal nodded. "Oh I've got a couple ideas of ways to push boundaries. I just didn't figure you for an exhibitionist." Whoever they asked to play mediator for them needed to be either incredibly brave, or incredibly foolish, as well as discreet. "No offense, but I'd still like to ensure we're checking out other methods and leave this as a last resort." He took a deep breath, knowing what he was going to admit could come back to bite him in the ass if Hope decided to let her instincts rule. "I have one idea, but I don't have the equipment needed."
~~~ "Hmm, that just goes to show you don't know me very well." Hope quirked a brow slightly, a hint of a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. He should know better. There had to be some reason, after all, why Garret was so fond of her. "Of course," she replied. That was just a given. And then he mentioned an idea and she arched that brow again. "Elaborate?"
~~~ "That will change." Mal and Hope had plenty of time to get to know each other now with the idea of this little experiment. Hopefully it wouldn't backfire. Focusing back on the present, it didn't surprise him that Hope would want more information. "Hounds are not genetically disposed to live as long as I have. Even we can die of old age. I've got a way around that, but what I have is limited. The right equipment and know-how could potentially break down a small sampling and create more."
~~~ "And you're just now telling me this?" Hope asked. "Malakai, I have a doctorate of both botany and pharmacology. Creating drugs is what I do and if you already have some that works for you, I could not only get the makeup so that more could be produced for your benefit, I could more than likely adjust it to work for a human or any other number of races."
~~~ Mal's eyes narrowed in warning. "This is not meant to be mass produced. It was commissioned for me over a thousand years ago from a very powerful sorcerer. I wouldn't bring it up except it's Garret." He was all hound in that moment, not caring he was essentially threatening Hope. If this got out to the public, there would be a death threat on his head. "If I bring it to you, I want your oath it goes no further."
~~~ That would be... difficult. But she had just said not that long ago that she would do anything for Garret and she meant it. And if that meant that she had to allow the key to sustaining life for all races to simply slip from her fingertips just so she could get her hands on it long enough to make sure that he didn't die, well... "Do you require a binding oath or is my word good enough?" A witch could create an oath that would bind if he preferred it. That wouldn't be an issue in the least.
~~~ It wasn't that Mal didn't trust Hope. If Garret trusted her, that was good enough for him, but it was his life on the line with this. "Binding oath. As soon as it's done, you tell me how much you need and you'll have it."
~~~ "Okay, I'll arrange it." Hope gathered the books she had been holding to her chest once more and then announced, "I'm going. I think I've spent enough time locked in an air-tight room alone with you for one day." She smirked before adding, "No offense."
~~~ "None taken." Mal moved back to the table to pick up the book he'd set down, and turned back. "And Hope? Thanks." He didn't care to say much more than that, so he slid between some shelves, looking for more books.
~~~ Hope didn't reply. There was really nothing more to say. She headed to the door and hit the buzzer to indicate she was ready to leave. The door hissed open after a moment and she headed back through the tunnel to the main store to complete her acquisition.