Elijah

[thisismybar]

He'd hesitated, but he'd actually, eventually, bucked up and called Elijah to see if there was any news about the cave. He wasn't sure why, except that it seemed like such a nice, relatively non-threatening distraction.

Better than alcohol and vampire slaying, anyway.

Then he'd invited Elijah over to his place for a drink and to update him, before maybe (hopefully) going out and getting Elijah in there to look around. He understood that even less. Except... Elijah's company had been really, really easy. Kind of weird! But easy.

He missed easy.

Not that kind of easy. Just... close to comfortable, and pleasant.

He met Elijah with the door, handed him a glass of bourbon and stepped back to let him in.

"Any luck?" he asked, as he gestured Elijah toward the living room.

Comments

[manof_myword]

"Generally the blood and the bite marks," Elijah said dryly.

[thisismybar]

"How does someone miss that?" he asked, sounding every bit as bewildered as he was. "What the hell else are you doing?"

[manof_myword]

"Generally because you compel them not to notice," Elijah said patiently.

[thisismybar]

"That's probably the best possible option...." He was a little twitchy about the biting thing. Okay, he was actually a lot fucking twitchy about it. It wasn't a moral judgement, just a sort of recoil. And a reasonably mild one (comparatively), since he'd just exhausted himself crying, and Elijah hadn't bitten him anyway. He didn't think. He refused to question it, because it was insulting, but it made his stomach knot up.

[manof_myword]

Elijah couldn't help but notice, and he wanted to mutter something about Ric having asked, but he didn't. Didn't pull away either, or curl closer either one. From what he'd seen here, he doubted any of them knew it didn't have to be either horrifying or something to just...endure because someone was hurt and needed blood and you were all there was, so you volunteered, but...endured.

"Second best," was all he said, though he added, "And far better than the majority of the alternatives, yes."

[thisismybar]

"What's the best?" he asked, because... well, he was Ric. He wanted to know. Even when he wasn't sure if he wanted to know.

[manof_myword]

Elijah arched an eyebrow, then shrugged. "Someone who offers it freely, because they want to."

[thisismybar]

"Does that happen often?" He wasn't trying to judge, though of course he was. He was just bewildered. He went back to petting Elijah's hair, though.

[manof_myword]

"Some centuries more often than others." He settled a little at the touch, the petting. "Sometimes a lover. Sometimes just a friend. Other times a trade, of sorts. There has to be trust, though. Someone who knows of us already, or who we come to test enough to tell. That makes it more rare. You can't tell every village girl you hire to be a maid what you are without compelling her to never speak of it to any outside the household, and to not be afraid and after that..." He shrugged. "It's never really fully freely given, even if it seems to be."

Especially when Klaus and Kol kept killing the maids until Elijah had to point out it was getting impossible to hire good help and make a rule about moderation with the servants.

[thisismybar]

"No, because compulsion's come into play and you don't know how afraid they would be without it. If it would change their decision." He nuzzled at Elijah's temple, then let his hand fall to rest against Elijah's side. "It twists everything...." Thinking about Damon, yes.

[manof_myword]

"Exactly." It was necessary, and no one lived in fear, but it wasn't the same. "But sometimes people know and they don't have to be compelled for...anything. It's rare, but it happens."

[thisismybar]

Ric stayed silent for a bit, before finally coming up with, "I'm trying to come up with a way to say what I'm thinking, without insulting someone.... It's not working."

[manof_myword]

Elijah arched an eyebrow. "I'll take that as a warning. Just go ahead and say it."

[thisismybar]

Ric hesitated a bit more, anyway. "The trust is probably harder to come by than the masochism...."

[manof_myword]

Elijah nodded, accepting that easily enough. "Of that I have no doubt."

Masochists he knew, what with his sadistic streak.

[thisismybar]

Ric blinked. "Maybe I should reassess what I consider insulting...." He was kind of eyeing Elijah, speculatively, but he was still naked in bed with him, and it wasn't exactly wary. Elijah had been nothing but good. Really good, actually, in every sense of the word.

[manof_myword]

Elijah tilted his head, studying him, then gave Ric a little bit of an amused look before leaning in to brush a kiss over his lips. "Probably." He'd met Klaus, right? Elijah was hard to insult. "Why should I have found that insulting?"

[thisismybar]

He had definitely met Klaus. Had done more than meet Klaus, actually, and obviously Klaus was a bastard, but Elijah wasn't, so there was something of a disconnect. "I don't know. I suppose the idea of being kink fodder. Or the implications about getting off on people screaming."

[manof_myword]

"Mutually beneficial arrangement," Elijah reminded him. If someone got off on the pain...they got what they wanted. So did he. He shrugged a little. "But it doesn't have to be terribly painful, though..." He frowned a little, reaching to ghost one finger down Ric's cheek. "Vampire, sweetheart. Apex predator. Doesn't matter how well we control it, we all have those darker urges."

[thisismybar]

The touch, in combination with Elijah's words drew the singularly most starkly conflicted response from Ric that he'd ever experienced.

It sent off alarm bells, deeply rooted ones that went past just personal experience and into the more primal part of himself that recognized itself as prey, and would have even if Elijah hadn't used the word predator. It was chilling, made his heart lurch, and the hair on the back of his neck and arms stand up.

It was also erotic as hell, somehow, and even having just come had him flushed and his pupils dilating. Not entirely coincidental, he'd long ago made friends with fear, sought it out, enjoyed the rush. But not... like this, not so basically primal and physical.

That he'd cried himself out on Elijah, and certainly hadn't been hurt tempered it all, down to something that kept him from snarling or pressing closer, but the entire, confused, reaction was still there. And in many ways being so emotionally drained and free let the reaction happen, without the internal resistance he could have put up, otherwise.

He took a deep breath, more than a little shaky on the exhale. "Lions don't usually fuck gazelles?" he offered, though it was ridiculous and he knew it. Shaken? Oh, yes.

[manof_myword]

It wasn't necessarily the reaction that Elijah had been going for, though he hadn't pinned down what he was going for there except a moment's honesty, or...reminder, perhaps. He didn't want there to be a rude surprise later.

The fear sharpened his attention--natural reaction he'd managed to suppress when otherwise distracted. But the aroused response linked to it had his eyes trying to darken.

With a more deliberate move, he trailed his lips along Ric's jaw to his ear, nibbling a little. "Another reason to be grateful we started out the same species, then..."

[thisismybar]

Ric gasped sharply, wrapped his arm tightly around Elijah and dug his nails into Elijah's hip hard. He gave a fullbody shudder, then, as the result of feeling too much -fear and arousal both sharpening, and physical sensation layered right on top. His heart was racing, thudding hard enough for him to feel it not just in his chest, but his throat.

"It's a pretty... unique situation...." Mostly. He thought. Or didn't, actually, think at all. He was unsteady as shit, but he wasn't flinching away. Anything but, really, with the way he was holding on.

[manof_myword]

Elijah tried, with limited success, to bite back the moan that threatened to escape at Ric's shudder against him, the heightened trip of his heart, his blood so close to Elijah's lips. He stopped moving, closed his eyes, breathed in and out slowly and pushed back the instinct and cravings.

"Very unique," he said, a little breathless.

[thisismybar]

Between primal fear and renewed arousal, Ric was absolutely shaking. It wasn't an emotional thing, but a purely physical reaction to the sheer amount of adrenaline coursing through his body. His grip on Elijah stayed tight, and he actually curled closer in to Elijah, face finding the space between Elijah's throat and his shoulder, instinctively seeking out the dark to try to calm himself.

It didn't really work, mind, because Elijah had roused both responses, but he did make some sort of effort. When he regained the capacity for thought, Ric was going to wonder how in the name of hell it made sense to comfort himself with the same thing that had shaken him. He needed more lessons in kink, or something.

"You're all right," he mumbled, sort of vaguely reassuring Elijah. Then nipping restlessly at his shoulder.

[manof_myword]

Elijah did groan at that, not really understanding why Ric was clinging to him like that, either. But it certainly wasn't helping his responses. Neither did the nip. He brushed a kiss over Ric's jaw, then gently extricated himself, because being quite that close, quite so wrapped up in Ric was shaking his iron control, and he wasn't used to that.

He was going to blame the over-emotional day.

He didn't pull fully away, just unwound them a little bit and flopped on his back, breathing hard. "Not really," he said, a little ruefully, with a wry chuckle.