[His voice is crisp and clipped, not at all how he usually addresses Dorian, certainly not in several months at least.]
I am no longer willing to work with Sims. The matter we began with the creature will either be ours to handle, or if you think him more useful, continue with him. I'll hold no ill will for your decision.
[He might appreciate Jon more now, but the choice at hand, as abruptly as it's being put before him, rests with ending the matter of the dream creature the way it began.]
Well that's an easy decision to make; We'll take it on our own, then. Thanks to Jon, I know the general location where the creature hiding for whenever we do decide to make our move.
[He could leave it at that, but the gossip hound in him simply can't resist.]
Frankly? Yeah. As far as I know he isn't as hardy as I am, and he was going to bring a protection detail. Extra magical firepower might not be the worst idea, but too many chefs in the creature-hunting kitchen and all of that. [Not to mention layers of potential drama. No, in the end, it really might be better to strip the party down and go with the essentials. Fewer distractions means a quicker push towards putting the creature in the ground where it belongs.
Hm? That's a little more of a guard dog-like reaction than he might have expected. Curious.]
Luckily enough, she doesn't seem like the type who can't fight her own battles, whether they're over hypocrisy or something worse.
Indeed. I don't think he'd be of any help at all in a fight, and he might not be able to control himself not to feed if it were to become traumatic enough.
[Nor could he have necessarily trusted any protection detail. He'd know where their loyalty lay. Not with him or Dorian.]
It's beside the point. She's my childe. An attack on her is an attack on me and will be met accordingly.
[He hasn't walked away from every code he exists by, not by any stretch.]
Your childe? [He's only familiar with the vampiric terminology from his own world and some of Grayson's, but as his own question trails off, he realizes that the other man can only mean one thing.] ...You sired her.
[Even before Grayson's confirmed it, the hypothetical takes root in a powerful way. This man's the last person who would do something like that lightly.]
Yes. He sought to pretend to play civil to me while disparaging her, and I won't have it. Not for a moment.
[Perhaps this isn't precisely how he'd have sought to break otherwise big news, but this has always been more or less a private affair and not something brought up simply for its own sake to anyone.]
[As much as Dorian respects the catharsis of a good angry rant, it's impossible to let go of the news that Grayson's dropped into his lap as an offhand piece of information. He doesn't know Vanessa that well, but she knows him, and their last significant meeting had been enough to make him curious about her fate.
But the more significant thing is the drastic choice underpinning it all.]
Then he'll get fucked, obviously. [The words are accompanied by an unseen, briskly dismissive wave of his hand. Can they stop talking about Jon now?]
I suppose I'm the last person in the city to find out that you fell in love. [Despite his words, his tone is pleased. Intrigued at the edges.] Congratulations.
Don’t ‘read into it’. [He huffs.] Not that long ago you insisted you were fighting a battle to see if you had any human feeling left to scrape together.
So you were waiting for the right person—- vampire? Not intentionally, but you were?
No. Something unexpected happened with the siring. Understand that it's a process much studied but difficult to prove in any concrete way. It's believed the soul essence, whatever remains in a vampire after their own siring, blends with the essence of the childe at the time of rising. It's as though I was infused with a replacement for what I cut away. Grafted. However you choose to term it.
It increased my capacity to feel. Everything else...took care of itself more or less.
[It didn't take him long to love her after the fact.]
It's likely it happened to me the first time I sired at home. I simply didn't notice it because the things I was focused on weren't challenging me to feel at the time.
[That's more involved than he's ever understood siring to be - certainly more of a give and take than how Toby described his own siring to be like. As far as he understands it, that connection only went as far as linking Ivor and Toby to the extent that Ivor had known when he'd died but little else.
This version is romantic in a macabre sort of way, even with the word 'grafted' thrown in.]
Then if I'm understanding you right, if you sired more humans, theoretically there's a chance you'd continue to become even more human in feeling? Gain more feeling? [Interesting.]
So you're the same, but you've also become more because of her, [he reasons, thoughtfully.]
I'm not sure. Perhaps I'd fill up to whatever deficiency was left over, if any. I've never heard of it having this specific effect. Most vampires don't make the ritual I performed as permanent as I did.
[If anyone else has, he never spoke to them.]
Yes. It hasn't changed my intentions or proclivities, merely my capacity and...empathy, for lack of a better term.
[He no longer puzzles at most emotional reactions to what he says or does. It doesn't mean he feels for the people he offends or hurts unless he already cares. He's not sure he needs to clarify that for Dorian given how well he does know him already.]
[Most of what he's heard by this point in the conversation has been pleasing. He's glad that Grayson's found something like what he has with Toby, in whatever form it's taken with Vanessa and through the supernatural process of how it sounds like it was allowed to happen.
It feels like the closing of a chapter between them-- one that he doesn't think needs to be voiced. If Grayson's graduated to having more empathy, he may have already changed enough that he's not sure where their similarities lie anymore.]
Well, you've done something that I thought wasn't possible for anyone who's lived for as long as you have: you changed. If it's the way you make it sound, I'm sure it isn't easy, [not when it's something new, and that takes adjusting to so suddenly] but I'm happy for you.
[Genuinely. Even as it makes him reflect on how relatively little he feels like he's changed here, in contrast.]
I didn't think it was possible, myself, and I doubt that it would have been to this degree without the unforeseen.
[As gratifying as it would be to be able to take credit, as it is it would also be a falsehood. Intentions aside, he considers it highly unlikely he'd have ever grown beyond an ability to feign appropriate responses where necessary, to remain on the outside looking in.]
Easy, no. Satisfying, quite. A frontier revisited long enough after the fact to feel new. There's very little of this I remember from before.
Thank you. I doubt I'd have embarked on any of it without your companionship and goading. The siring perhaps. Not what started the climb out of dispassion and numbness.
You're welcome. [There's a note of real warmth to the words.] As cliché as it is to say it, that's what friends are for.
[And he knows well that once you've gone gray and reached a certain age, a real friend is one of the more difficult things in any world to find. Someone who can be trusted is even more scarce.
When he arrived in the city, bereft and freshly having decided to keep on trying to live after all, what he'd thought he needed was to recapture lost pieces of himself. What he actually ended up benefiting from, was making a friend.]
But at any rate, now that we've closed the book on our first agreement, once you've parsed your feelings about Jon [he did interrupt Grayson's rant, after all] let's pick the day we take out that creature. It's already spent too much time crawling around the city without some kind of answer to trespassing on my nightmares.
I'll keep a eye on the trail Jon picked out to its lair and make sure nothing changes there. [Because he's physically incapable of not involving himself in the preparations somehow, even if he's useless magically and well aware of the fact.]
What sort of surprises are you imagining? Something along the lines of the trap you laid in the nightmare realm?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Voice; un: frost
I am no longer willing to work with Sims. The matter we began with the creature will either be ours to handle, or if you think him more useful, continue with him. I'll hold no ill will for your decision.
voice; @Gray
Well that's an easy decision to make; We'll take it on our own, then. Thanks to Jon, I know the general location where the creature hiding for whenever we do decide to make our move.
[He could leave it at that, but the gossip hound in him simply can't resist.]
What happened?
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[Disdain drops in the words.]
He judged and upset Vanessa over a choice he hypocritically made for himself, and he can rot in Hell for all I care. I'm done with him.
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Hm? That's a little more of a guard dog-like reaction than he might have expected. Curious.]
Luckily enough, she doesn't seem like the type who can't fight her own battles, whether they're over hypocrisy or something worse.
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[Nor could he have necessarily trusted any protection detail. He'd know where their loyalty lay. Not with him or Dorian.]
It's beside the point. She's my childe. An attack on her is an attack on me and will be met accordingly.
[He hasn't walked away from every code he exists by, not by any stretch.]
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[Even before Grayson's confirmed it, the hypothetical takes root in a powerful way. This man's the last person who would do something like that lightly.]
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[Perhaps this isn't precisely how he'd have sought to break otherwise big news, but this has always been more or less a private affair and not something brought up simply for its own sake to anyone.]
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But the more significant thing is the drastic choice underpinning it all.]
Then he'll get fucked, obviously. [The words are accompanied by an unseen, briskly dismissive wave of his hand. Can they stop talking about Jon now?]
I suppose I'm the last person in the city to find out that you fell in love. [Despite his words, his tone is pleased. Intrigued at the edges.] Congratulations.
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Don't read too much into it. That didn't happen until after I sired her.
[He sounds amused mostly, maybe a touch chagrined.]
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Don’t ‘read into it’. [He huffs.] Not that long ago you insisted you were fighting a battle to see if you had any human feeling left to scrape together.
So you were waiting for the right person—- vampire? Not intentionally, but you were?
[Dish, Grayson!!]
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It increased my capacity to feel. Everything else...took care of itself more or less.
[It didn't take him long to love her after the fact.]
It's likely it happened to me the first time I sired at home. I simply didn't notice it because the things I was focused on weren't challenging me to feel at the time.
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This version is romantic in a macabre sort of way, even with the word 'grafted' thrown in.]
Then if I'm understanding you right, if you sired more humans, theoretically there's a chance you'd continue to become even more human in feeling? Gain more feeling? [Interesting.]
So you're the same, but you've also become more because of her, [he reasons, thoughtfully.]
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[If anyone else has, he never spoke to them.]
Yes. It hasn't changed my intentions or proclivities, merely my capacity and...empathy, for lack of a better term.
[He no longer puzzles at most emotional reactions to what he says or does. It doesn't mean he feels for the people he offends or hurts unless he already cares. He's not sure he needs to clarify that for Dorian given how well he does know him already.]
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It feels like the closing of a chapter between them-- one that he doesn't think needs to be voiced. If Grayson's graduated to having more empathy, he may have already changed enough that he's not sure where their similarities lie anymore.]
Well, you've done something that I thought wasn't possible for anyone who's lived for as long as you have: you changed. If it's the way you make it sound, I'm sure it isn't easy, [not when it's something new, and that takes adjusting to so suddenly] but I'm happy for you.
[Genuinely. Even as it makes him reflect on how relatively little he feels like he's changed here, in contrast.]
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[As gratifying as it would be to be able to take credit, as it is it would also be a falsehood. Intentions aside, he considers it highly unlikely he'd have ever grown beyond an ability to feign appropriate responses where necessary, to remain on the outside looking in.]
Easy, no. Satisfying, quite. A frontier revisited long enough after the fact to feel new. There's very little of this I remember from before.
Thank you. I doubt I'd have embarked on any of it without your companionship and goading. The siring perhaps. Not what started the climb out of dispassion and numbness.
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[And he knows well that once you've gone gray and reached a certain age, a real friend is one of the more difficult things in any world to find. Someone who can be trusted is even more scarce.
When he arrived in the city, bereft and freshly having decided to keep on trying to live after all, what he'd thought he needed was to recapture lost pieces of himself. What he actually ended up benefiting from, was making a friend.]
But at any rate, now that we've closed the book on our first agreement, once you've parsed your feelings about Jon [he did interrupt Grayson's rant, after all] let's pick the day we take out that creature. It's already spent too much time crawling around the city without some kind of answer to trespassing on my nightmares.
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[Some cliches are so for good reason.]
My feelings are well parsed. I'd say sooner rather than later. The longer it lingers, the more time it has to adapt its tactics.
I need some time to perform a few defensive rituals and prepare some surprises for our friend. Three weeks hence should be time enough.
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What sort of surprises are you imagining? Something along the lines of the trap you laid in the nightmare realm?
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[No sense in giving it any sort of advantage.]
You can trust I'll be prepared.
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I don't have any doubts there. Just as long as it's something Toby or I won't accidentally trip through our not knowing about it, I suppose.
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[It's his sardonic Texan drawl when he feels something ought to go without saying. It's gone as soon as it comes on.]
We'll talk again soon.