Post by ``Constantine on Oct 17, 2008 19:33:13 GMT -6
"Shit," I said.
Shit was right. Once upon a time, Derrick and I had been dating, and making a good run for it, too. Then along came big scary vampire.
Big scary vampire forces me to be his human servant, and then has the gall to insist that I remain true to him. Ergo, celibate. He even insinuated that any being that I dated would be destroyed.
I had been dating Derrick at the time. I broke up with him, saying that I had met someone else.
Oh, come one, give me a break! It's not like I wanted him to know the real reason. Then he'd have insisted on 'saving' me, and gotten fried.
As it was, Derrick didn't take to well to my sudden and apparent rejection. He had gone real quite. Evil-eyed, jaw-clenching, nostril-flaring quiet. And then he had left. It's been a month since I last saw him.
And boy, did he look pissed. His gray-green eyes were shiny, and flashed with surges of rage. His face was set in hard ass-mode, and a few veins were popping out.
"I'll be in my office," I whispered, and knew that the rats would hearing. They had supernatural hearing.
I skedaddled into my office, and left the rats to deal with Derrick.
Derrick was a 7th level witch - the only witch in three centuries to attain that level. Freaky powerful.
And I wasn't sure how well I'd survive a magical attack from him. My brand of magic was with the elements - fire, earth, air, and water. Strictly ambient, and physical. And his dealt with both, as well as curses, spells, and other 'invisible' works of magic.
The rats, however, were more likely to survive a hit from Derrick. After all, they were wererats, and had their own brand of magic.
I shut the door as firmly as I could, and locked it. I had two bolt looks, a chain lock, and a floor bolt. Paranoid, who, me? Naw...But sometimes I really didn't want the door to open.
I went to the back of my office, behind my desk, and opened a drawer. I grabbed my office gun, the Browning Hi-Power. It wasn't my main gun - that was at home - but it did quite nicely. And today, it would be my protection.
When I had arranged everything to my liking, I stood still, and strained my ears, trying to hear what was going on. But, silly me, I forgot. Dave, my boss, had had all the wall soundproofed two weeks ago. Nothing got through.
Suddenly, the locks slid out of place, and the door swung open. It creaked, like some of those really old doors did when moved. Normally, I liked it, but right now, it scared the crap out of me.
Derrick stepped through the door frame, and my heart stuttered, skipping a few beats. Crap, this was it.
I had expected Nathan, or even Jaced, maybe both, maybe the Easter Bunny, to come through and let me know everything was alrighty. But it wasn't.
Only, Derrick didn't look so mad anymore. In fact, he looked sad, almost resigned. Which, I must confess, scared me. To me, Derrick was Mr.I-Don't-Get-Down-And-Blue.
He was the man that got angry, pissed, enraged, outraged, happy, joyous, confused, curious, suspicious - a whole host of emotions. But I'd never seen him get sad.
Never. Hell, when his sister had died, you know what he'd done? He'd cracked a joke about her!
I wasn't quite sure what scared me more: angry Derrick, or sad Derrick. Angry Derrick might hurt me, but sad Derrick was something entirely knew. Uncharted territory. I didn't know what could happen when he was like this.
Derrick shut the door behind him, and then leaned back on it. He didn't say anything, just stared at me.
I tried not to look at him, but I couldn't help it. I'd missed him. Then I tried not to look him in the eyes - I didn't think I could take seeing his thoughts and emotions right now - but my traitorous pupils rolled up to make contact. We met eyes, and gazed at each other.
After what seemed like an eternity, Derrick broke eye-contact, closing his eyes. He spoke, and it was careful, quiet, calm. As if, if he let any of his emotions flare, he'd crack, and unleash everything.
" 'Mara, I found out about Constantine," he said, and I stopped breathing for a moment. I had really hoped he wouldn't find out. It really wasn't all that well-known that Constantine had taken a human servant, and Derrick didn't exactly walk in the circles that did know.
"Don't call me that," I said, a touch defensively. Derrick wasn't my boyfriend anymore; he didn't have the right to call me that. It was also a very blatant, very painful reminder of everything that I had lost in becoming a servant to an ageless bloodsucker.
"And why not?" He sneered ,"Afraid your master will come and toast me?"
"That's exactly it," I said warily. I would not rise to his bait. I mustn't. So what if I had a master. Just think of his as a boss; one I really don't like but have to put up with anyway, like Dave. Think about puppies! Puppies are always good.
"I wanted you to live. I didn't want your death on my conscience," I added tartly. Puppies not-with-standing, it was hard to stay distanced, hard to not fall hard and feel the burn.
"God, 'Mara, why didn't you tell me? I could have done something." Derrick demanded as he took a step toward me, which I reciprocated be taking a step backward.
I didn't have an answer for him, not one that he'd want to hear. If I had told him that he would have ridden in as the white knight, he'd deny it, and then we'd have one more thing to fight about.
Instead, I countered his question with another question, "What the hell would you have done?" Okay, so maybe I said it a little sharper than necessary, and the cuss-word wasn't very helpful, but give me a break. I'd sacrificed my entire relationship with Derrick to keep him alive, and her seemed to want to die. So sue me if I was a little testy about it.
"I could have done something. Anything. I'm the Tic'tic of the Ardo Morte pack. Surely that gets me something?" He wasn't quite yelling, but he was close. And he had taken another step toward me. This time, I held my ground.
Hmph. The proverbial light shined. Derrick was the Tic'tic, the brujo, the magic-man, for the local wolf pack. Which was news to me. However, they certainly did walk the circles. And it did explain things. Although, it did make me a little afraid. He had ties to Luke, and ultimately, Cataline.
"Are you going to kill me?" I asked quietly. It was something that needed to be known, if only to know where I stood, and it seemed like a very real possibility to me.
Derrick frowned at me, and almost shouted ,"Where the hell did you get that idea? Granted, I felt like strangling you when I found out, and I'm still very angry, but kill you? Never!"
Okay, fuck not rising to the bait.
"Oh, I don't know," I shouted at him with a heavy dollop of sarcasm, "Maybe it's the fact that you're the Tic'tic for the very werewolf pack that's trying to kill me! Luke is your Ulfric, too!"
"Don't you know anything?" He was shouting now, too, "I thought you were supposed to be the hot-shot preternatural expert, and you don't even know what a fucking Tic'tic is?"
His psychic energy was swirling about the room, suffocatingly powerful, and angry, oh so angry. I wish I could say that I had a psychic aura to match, but the sad truth was that my brand of magic ran more to physical prowess rather than mental. I dealt with fire, earth, water and wind. That's all. I can't cast an illusion, or mess with someones memory, or anything as useful as that. No, my powers were for full-frontal physical battle, with physical opponents.
And, whadya know, I started to get a more than little pissed off.
"You're the Ulfric's freaking magic-lapdog, that's what you are!" I sneered, and I didn't need a mirror to tell that the accompanying expression was not pretty.
Derrick went quiet, then, his jaw firmly clenched shut. I could see the jaw bones grinding together, and his temples stood out. It dawned upon me that my expression was probably nearly identical to his.
"A Tic'tic is above the pack politics, Demara," He said quietly, but the words sounded rather strained. "That's how I can run at the Lupanar and not be a werewolf.
And my job is to protect, and to shield. I can never launch the first offensive."
Derrick was calming down all that anger fading away. Or maybe just being stored for a later time. Either way, it was replaced by that same sad expression, which led me to wonder where the anger went.
"You know, some of the pack consider the execution of our Lupa to be an offensive attack," he said softly, and I realized something right then and there: for a while, Derrick had actually contemplated killing me.
"Others think that you've done them a great service, and are prepared to look the other way." The other way meant no punishment and/or death for me. I was liking those wolves.
"And what does the Ulfric think?" I just had to ask.
Derrick grimaced, and that was answer enough, although it gave me two possible answers. Either Luke really, really, really wanted me dead, or he wanted to do something horribly profane to me.
"Do you really want to know?" he asked.
"Not really."
Derrick grunted, and I felt better. That grunt was familiar. It meant that he thought I'd done something silly, funny, or not-that-smart, and that he that he was tolerating it with resigned patience. It also meant that he thought it was cute.
"I wouldn't have told you, in any case. It's not something you need to hear," Derrick said, and, oh, I don't know, maybe it sounded awful arrogant and high-handed to me. But, whatever the case, I didn't much care for the sound of it.
But, because I was a nice, sane little girl, I kept my big fat mouth shut. Derrick was a master witch, one of the most powerful witches to be seen in a century. And he was big potatoes to my small potatoes. Plus, the man suffered from a little thing called "white knight syndrome". The symptoms included: being annoyingly brave, trying to protect everyone, and feeling the need to rescue every damsel in distress that he came across.
He's the kinda guy that'd try and save the girl hidden away in the keep guarded by the dragon, or die trying. Unfortunately, seeing as there weren't any dragons in America, he had to go to the next best thing; which, coincidentally, happens to be rescuing the girl from the magical clutches of the vampire.
And I so did not want Derrick to die while trying to save me. First of all, it was too late to "save" me, and second of all, it really wasn't any of his business. I planned on toughing it out my way. My way did not include buying roses to put on Derricks coffin.
"Fine then," I said in an attempt to end this. I really didn't want to fight with him right now. Sure, I had somewhat of an authority issue, and sure, Derrick sometimes acted like he was an authority, but why borrow trouble? I had enough as it was.
"Did you come her just to tell me that you know about my little vamp problem, or is there something else that you wanted to tell me?" I was actually hoping that he was done. I wanted Derrick out of my office, and away from me. Before he ended up dead.
The expression on Derricks face changed, and I got a hunch as to what was going to happen next. I knew I wasn't going to stop it; in fact, I sort of wanted it.
"Maybe I came here because I missed you?" He said, but I knew that it was only half-true. He might miss me, but he had also come because of the challenge that I presented him; my whole bloody situation was probably really attractive to him.
I'm not calling him a big fat liar, but he sure wasn't telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And who was I to throw stones, anyways? I was just lucky that God hadn't stricken me with lightening yet. Maybe I was immune?
Derrick raised a hand, and crooked a finger. It was a small movement, and fast, but it caused me to take in a sudden breath of air. Oh, boy oh boy, he was going with the silent, dominant persona today.
"C'mere," he said, and his voiced was calm, quiet. It booked no argument, and expected complete and total obedience.
I went.
The moment I was within arm-reach, Derricks long arm snagged the waistband of my skirt, and pulled me closer. He cradled me against his chest, him looking down at me, and I looking up. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then, "'Mara, I sure have missed you something awful" and then he leaned down, and he kissed me.
It wasn't one of those French kisses that involves tongue -- we weren't at that stage anymore -- but, whoo-boy, was it hot. His lips were the same softness that I remembered, and his breath still tasted of fresh mint.
We ate at each others lips. I'd been a whole month for me, and I was desperate. It didn't help that he was uber-handsome, or that I was majorly attracted to the man.
By the time he broke the kiss, I was panting lightly. I guess I'd forgotten to breath, silly me. And Derrick! He had such a smug look on his face. It was, quite possibly, the smuggest look I'd ever seen on a human face. However, my eyes were still unfocused, which made it a tad bit difficult to tell.
Derrick had let go of me. He had his hand on the doorknob, and that smug grin was still plastered across his face. He opened the door slightly, and the smug grin faded into that look of sorrow that I was beginning to dislike. He stepped out with a ,"Love you, babe." and then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.
Shit was right. Once upon a time, Derrick and I had been dating, and making a good run for it, too. Then along came big scary vampire.
Big scary vampire forces me to be his human servant, and then has the gall to insist that I remain true to him. Ergo, celibate. He even insinuated that any being that I dated would be destroyed.
I had been dating Derrick at the time. I broke up with him, saying that I had met someone else.
Oh, come one, give me a break! It's not like I wanted him to know the real reason. Then he'd have insisted on 'saving' me, and gotten fried.
As it was, Derrick didn't take to well to my sudden and apparent rejection. He had gone real quite. Evil-eyed, jaw-clenching, nostril-flaring quiet. And then he had left. It's been a month since I last saw him.
And boy, did he look pissed. His gray-green eyes were shiny, and flashed with surges of rage. His face was set in hard ass-mode, and a few veins were popping out.
"I'll be in my office," I whispered, and knew that the rats would hearing. They had supernatural hearing.
I skedaddled into my office, and left the rats to deal with Derrick.
Derrick was a 7th level witch - the only witch in three centuries to attain that level. Freaky powerful.
And I wasn't sure how well I'd survive a magical attack from him. My brand of magic was with the elements - fire, earth, air, and water. Strictly ambient, and physical. And his dealt with both, as well as curses, spells, and other 'invisible' works of magic.
The rats, however, were more likely to survive a hit from Derrick. After all, they were wererats, and had their own brand of magic.
I shut the door as firmly as I could, and locked it. I had two bolt looks, a chain lock, and a floor bolt. Paranoid, who, me? Naw...But sometimes I really didn't want the door to open.
I went to the back of my office, behind my desk, and opened a drawer. I grabbed my office gun, the Browning Hi-Power. It wasn't my main gun - that was at home - but it did quite nicely. And today, it would be my protection.
When I had arranged everything to my liking, I stood still, and strained my ears, trying to hear what was going on. But, silly me, I forgot. Dave, my boss, had had all the wall soundproofed two weeks ago. Nothing got through.
Suddenly, the locks slid out of place, and the door swung open. It creaked, like some of those really old doors did when moved. Normally, I liked it, but right now, it scared the crap out of me.
Derrick stepped through the door frame, and my heart stuttered, skipping a few beats. Crap, this was it.
I had expected Nathan, or even Jaced, maybe both, maybe the Easter Bunny, to come through and let me know everything was alrighty. But it wasn't.
Only, Derrick didn't look so mad anymore. In fact, he looked sad, almost resigned. Which, I must confess, scared me. To me, Derrick was Mr.I-Don't-Get-Down-And-Blue.
He was the man that got angry, pissed, enraged, outraged, happy, joyous, confused, curious, suspicious - a whole host of emotions. But I'd never seen him get sad.
Never. Hell, when his sister had died, you know what he'd done? He'd cracked a joke about her!
I wasn't quite sure what scared me more: angry Derrick, or sad Derrick. Angry Derrick might hurt me, but sad Derrick was something entirely knew. Uncharted territory. I didn't know what could happen when he was like this.
Derrick shut the door behind him, and then leaned back on it. He didn't say anything, just stared at me.
I tried not to look at him, but I couldn't help it. I'd missed him. Then I tried not to look him in the eyes - I didn't think I could take seeing his thoughts and emotions right now - but my traitorous pupils rolled up to make contact. We met eyes, and gazed at each other.
After what seemed like an eternity, Derrick broke eye-contact, closing his eyes. He spoke, and it was careful, quiet, calm. As if, if he let any of his emotions flare, he'd crack, and unleash everything.
" 'Mara, I found out about Constantine," he said, and I stopped breathing for a moment. I had really hoped he wouldn't find out. It really wasn't all that well-known that Constantine had taken a human servant, and Derrick didn't exactly walk in the circles that did know.
"Don't call me that," I said, a touch defensively. Derrick wasn't my boyfriend anymore; he didn't have the right to call me that. It was also a very blatant, very painful reminder of everything that I had lost in becoming a servant to an ageless bloodsucker.
"And why not?" He sneered ,"Afraid your master will come and toast me?"
"That's exactly it," I said warily. I would not rise to his bait. I mustn't. So what if I had a master. Just think of his as a boss; one I really don't like but have to put up with anyway, like Dave. Think about puppies! Puppies are always good.
"I wanted you to live. I didn't want your death on my conscience," I added tartly. Puppies not-with-standing, it was hard to stay distanced, hard to not fall hard and feel the burn.
"God, 'Mara, why didn't you tell me? I could have done something." Derrick demanded as he took a step toward me, which I reciprocated be taking a step backward.
I didn't have an answer for him, not one that he'd want to hear. If I had told him that he would have ridden in as the white knight, he'd deny it, and then we'd have one more thing to fight about.
Instead, I countered his question with another question, "What the hell would you have done?" Okay, so maybe I said it a little sharper than necessary, and the cuss-word wasn't very helpful, but give me a break. I'd sacrificed my entire relationship with Derrick to keep him alive, and her seemed to want to die. So sue me if I was a little testy about it.
"I could have done something. Anything. I'm the Tic'tic of the Ardo Morte pack. Surely that gets me something?" He wasn't quite yelling, but he was close. And he had taken another step toward me. This time, I held my ground.
Hmph. The proverbial light shined. Derrick was the Tic'tic, the brujo, the magic-man, for the local wolf pack. Which was news to me. However, they certainly did walk the circles. And it did explain things. Although, it did make me a little afraid. He had ties to Luke, and ultimately, Cataline.
"Are you going to kill me?" I asked quietly. It was something that needed to be known, if only to know where I stood, and it seemed like a very real possibility to me.
Derrick frowned at me, and almost shouted ,"Where the hell did you get that idea? Granted, I felt like strangling you when I found out, and I'm still very angry, but kill you? Never!"
Okay, fuck not rising to the bait.
"Oh, I don't know," I shouted at him with a heavy dollop of sarcasm, "Maybe it's the fact that you're the Tic'tic for the very werewolf pack that's trying to kill me! Luke is your Ulfric, too!"
"Don't you know anything?" He was shouting now, too, "I thought you were supposed to be the hot-shot preternatural expert, and you don't even know what a fucking Tic'tic is?"
His psychic energy was swirling about the room, suffocatingly powerful, and angry, oh so angry. I wish I could say that I had a psychic aura to match, but the sad truth was that my brand of magic ran more to physical prowess rather than mental. I dealt with fire, earth, water and wind. That's all. I can't cast an illusion, or mess with someones memory, or anything as useful as that. No, my powers were for full-frontal physical battle, with physical opponents.
And, whadya know, I started to get a more than little pissed off.
"You're the Ulfric's freaking magic-lapdog, that's what you are!" I sneered, and I didn't need a mirror to tell that the accompanying expression was not pretty.
Derrick went quiet, then, his jaw firmly clenched shut. I could see the jaw bones grinding together, and his temples stood out. It dawned upon me that my expression was probably nearly identical to his.
"A Tic'tic is above the pack politics, Demara," He said quietly, but the words sounded rather strained. "That's how I can run at the Lupanar and not be a werewolf.
And my job is to protect, and to shield. I can never launch the first offensive."
Derrick was calming down all that anger fading away. Or maybe just being stored for a later time. Either way, it was replaced by that same sad expression, which led me to wonder where the anger went.
"You know, some of the pack consider the execution of our Lupa to be an offensive attack," he said softly, and I realized something right then and there: for a while, Derrick had actually contemplated killing me.
"Others think that you've done them a great service, and are prepared to look the other way." The other way meant no punishment and/or death for me. I was liking those wolves.
"And what does the Ulfric think?" I just had to ask.
Derrick grimaced, and that was answer enough, although it gave me two possible answers. Either Luke really, really, really wanted me dead, or he wanted to do something horribly profane to me.
"Do you really want to know?" he asked.
"Not really."
Derrick grunted, and I felt better. That grunt was familiar. It meant that he thought I'd done something silly, funny, or not-that-smart, and that he that he was tolerating it with resigned patience. It also meant that he thought it was cute.
"I wouldn't have told you, in any case. It's not something you need to hear," Derrick said, and, oh, I don't know, maybe it sounded awful arrogant and high-handed to me. But, whatever the case, I didn't much care for the sound of it.
But, because I was a nice, sane little girl, I kept my big fat mouth shut. Derrick was a master witch, one of the most powerful witches to be seen in a century. And he was big potatoes to my small potatoes. Plus, the man suffered from a little thing called "white knight syndrome". The symptoms included: being annoyingly brave, trying to protect everyone, and feeling the need to rescue every damsel in distress that he came across.
He's the kinda guy that'd try and save the girl hidden away in the keep guarded by the dragon, or die trying. Unfortunately, seeing as there weren't any dragons in America, he had to go to the next best thing; which, coincidentally, happens to be rescuing the girl from the magical clutches of the vampire.
And I so did not want Derrick to die while trying to save me. First of all, it was too late to "save" me, and second of all, it really wasn't any of his business. I planned on toughing it out my way. My way did not include buying roses to put on Derricks coffin.
"Fine then," I said in an attempt to end this. I really didn't want to fight with him right now. Sure, I had somewhat of an authority issue, and sure, Derrick sometimes acted like he was an authority, but why borrow trouble? I had enough as it was.
"Did you come her just to tell me that you know about my little vamp problem, or is there something else that you wanted to tell me?" I was actually hoping that he was done. I wanted Derrick out of my office, and away from me. Before he ended up dead.
The expression on Derricks face changed, and I got a hunch as to what was going to happen next. I knew I wasn't going to stop it; in fact, I sort of wanted it.
"Maybe I came here because I missed you?" He said, but I knew that it was only half-true. He might miss me, but he had also come because of the challenge that I presented him; my whole bloody situation was probably really attractive to him.
I'm not calling him a big fat liar, but he sure wasn't telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And who was I to throw stones, anyways? I was just lucky that God hadn't stricken me with lightening yet. Maybe I was immune?
Derrick raised a hand, and crooked a finger. It was a small movement, and fast, but it caused me to take in a sudden breath of air. Oh, boy oh boy, he was going with the silent, dominant persona today.
"C'mere," he said, and his voiced was calm, quiet. It booked no argument, and expected complete and total obedience.
I went.
The moment I was within arm-reach, Derricks long arm snagged the waistband of my skirt, and pulled me closer. He cradled me against his chest, him looking down at me, and I looking up. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then, "'Mara, I sure have missed you something awful" and then he leaned down, and he kissed me.
It wasn't one of those French kisses that involves tongue -- we weren't at that stage anymore -- but, whoo-boy, was it hot. His lips were the same softness that I remembered, and his breath still tasted of fresh mint.
We ate at each others lips. I'd been a whole month for me, and I was desperate. It didn't help that he was uber-handsome, or that I was majorly attracted to the man.
By the time he broke the kiss, I was panting lightly. I guess I'd forgotten to breath, silly me. And Derrick! He had such a smug look on his face. It was, quite possibly, the smuggest look I'd ever seen on a human face. However, my eyes were still unfocused, which made it a tad bit difficult to tell.
Derrick had let go of me. He had his hand on the doorknob, and that smug grin was still plastered across his face. He opened the door slightly, and the smug grin faded into that look of sorrow that I was beginning to dislike. He stepped out with a ,"Love you, babe." and then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.
