death is inevitable

"That she is way way better at video games than me and is too kind for certain people on the internet to know. Some people are real dicks."

Jamie’s jaw tensed at Hastalik’s words. He was right, of course, Jamie was stalling, trying to plan his words so far in advance, planning the conversation out like a chess game in his mind, three moves ahead, how he thought Hastalik would respond and how Jamie could bite back. Of course… Hastalik had always surprised him, and Jamie knew this was an opportunity, a chance for him to give Hastalik the honesty Has had always given to him, even when Jamie had punished him for it. Faintly, he wondered if he’d be the one sleeping on the porch that night, or if Has would let him take the couch in the library.

“I told you it wouldn’t happen again.” He started, but knew it wasn’t enough, and so without giving time for Has to respond he kept going, reaching enough to actually take the papers in hand, a slow pull if Has would release them. “But something did happen. I slept with someone. Just once.” As though that could make it sting less, as though that could possibly make Has loathe him a little less. “It wasn’t meant to mean anything, and it didn’t.” That part was maybe less than true, because taking to bed had been meant to make him feel less alone, to stop the painful reminder that Hastalik was away from him, and might stay that way. It had served that purpose, but there was nothing else behind it, no wish to replace, as though that were even a possibility. Hastalik had made such an impression on Jamie’s life that the elder witch knew there was no going back.

.

        He’d been gone a few months. Sure, he hadn’t been the most easily reached but he had been able to be reached. He had told Jamie that he loved him, stayed connected whenever he could be, and it still hadn’t been enough. If he had left of his own volition, simply abandoned Jamie it would have been easier to understand but this felt like Jamie simply refusing to acknowledge the truth, that Has loved him and would come back. Obviously he had insecurities but had he even tried to move past them?

         “Then why didn’t you tell me?” Hastalik asked, because in truth, he was more upset about that. If Jamie had told him his fears had got the better of him Hastalik would have been disappointed but he’d have understood, especially because he had clearly made his own choices regarding his actions within the coven and while he could say he avoided sex with vampires where ever possible could he deny that he’d enjoyed doing it? No.

          Has couldn’t look at the paper, turning it over because while it all said negative the idea maybe Jamie could have come back with something and that would be how he knew, or why Jamie might suddenly start using something they hadn’t in the past, would have hurt too. “If it meant nothing why didn’t you tell me when I told you what happened while I was gone? You had my stuff in boxes, Jamie, that fucking hurt, how am I meant to believe it meant nothing if you didn’t tell me, if you were putting me away?” Has asked, his tone more upset than angry at this point.

Jamie didn’t glance up at the intrusion, too focused on the steaks he was preparing for their dinner that night. Had he known what Has had in hand, his reaction would have been more immediate, but still in his blissful bubble of ignorance, Jamie only gave a curious little hum as he settled a glass lid over the dish containing the steaks and their marinade. It was a lucky thing, maybe, that he set the dish into the refrigerator before he looked up at Has, or he might have dropped it. He recognized the letterhead instantly, the layout of the paperwork so familiar to him by now.

Guilt and shame burned through him, but Jamie kept his movements steady, controlled. There was a part of him that knew that Hastalik had turned Jamie’s previous admittance onto himself, that the elder witch had been vague enough about his affair with Matthew that Hastalik might not have realized what Jamie had been telling him at all.

 Jamie had never had any notions about being a good person, or even a good partner. Hastalik might have been slowly convincing him that he had that potential within him, but Jamie knew most days it was still buried deep. He hadn’t corrected Hastalik’s assumption, hadn’t clarified his meaning, and had lived, peacefully, in that small space of plausible deniability. The bubble had popped, though, and Jamie was in free-fall.

Different answers clamored for precedence on his tongue, sharp words, sarcastic deflections, accusations. Jamie picked up a towel from the counter, wiping it over hands he’d recently washed, just to give himself something to focus on, somewhere to look that wasn’t Hastalik. The topic was serious, but he still looked sexy, which Jamie found unfair.

“You’re looking at my test results.” He kept his tone even, not wanting the response to come off as sarcastic, though he was stating what was no doubt already obvious to Hastalik. “I wanted to make sure I was in the clear before we started sleeping together again.” He stepped closer, towel abandoned on the countertop again, one hand outstretched as though to take the papers back from Hastalik. “But you knew that. You’re asking why I got them.”

          “If you know what I mean then you could answer,” Hastalik pointed out. The other man’s slow movements felt like a dismissal of the validity of his worries. Jamie had never been easy, Hastalik wouldn’t pretend like he had been. Easy wasn’t what Hastalik was interested in and so it had never been something that got in the way of things but lying? Well lying, or skirting the truth, had been something Jamie had held so sternly against him that he’d been kept outside for weeks begging to be forgiven. He’d push past hard but it was hard imagining he had chosen to be honest with Jamie and the other man had thought he wouldn’t.

"Min-Ji is definitely my favourite streamer. Ten out of ten. All the streaming awards."

While he may have been dressed similarly in all black as his previous visit, Marie-Therese was drastically different. No longer wearing a mask of clothes and hair done and makeup, her features pale and pallid, skin so thin he may almost be able to see the long stilled blue veins beneath her flesh, perhaps more visible in areas where they were closer to the skin such as around the eyes and temples, no longer concealed by foundation and blush. “Come in,” she had preemptively been starving herself for this moment, attempting to weaken herself as much as possible by her own volition to make whatever job he had to do somewhat easier, therefore it was incredibly difficult to ignore the resounding heartbeat as it entered the room and she felt inherently drawn to it, following his steps closely with watchful eyes full of predatory hunger. She was not in danger of losing herself but there was no denying the fangs which descended from her mouth, an automatic response to the smell of fresh warm blood and a beating heart so close in proximity that if she had dared to inhale she might very well moan at the aroma. 

She was dressed simply in a plain black dress, not wanting to have any of her nicer garments ruined by blood. “That is for you,” she said of the food on the counter island of her kitchen. “I have some donors in the bedroom for myself,” willing and unwilling participants whom she had influenced to stay there and remain calm and silent so she was not tempted to snack on one. If she smelled fear or adrenaline or if one dared to try and run then she may not easily be able to control her nature. Her couch had been moved against the fall wall of the living room, along with any other of her sparse belongings to give them more room in the already wide open space.

           Marie’s form would have scared him a child, seeing the blue veins that ran through her body were the stuff of nightmares. It was not hard to convince young boys to be scared of them, of what they were and how they needed to feed, but Hastalik had been lucky, he’d had a guiding light gifted to him in his dreams by his mother that told him to question the things the coven wanted him to fear. Now, though Marie did look quite terrifying, Hastalik knew she was simply existing, even when he fangs came down he suspected it was hunger, he’d seen the same look on his darling Clara, the vampire he had loved in his youth, often.

            Has saw the food when he walked inside with her and offered her a smile, he’d wanted it but, of course, seeing her so hungry made it hard to want to dig in. “I’ll be putting a spell around you first to keep you contained,” he informed her when she informed him of her own meal. “Once you’re drained and I’m inside your head I’ll be building up a barrier in your mind pretty close to the one that would be connected to feeding, so it’ll be hard not to think about just running off to eat,” Hastalik explained, looking around the room, seeing she had made an open space for him.

         “What is this?” Hastalik asked as he walked into the kitchen, Tali by his bare feet. In his hand he held the STI results that Jamie had received from the hospital. Hastalik knew it couldn’t be about him, they hadn’t had sex since his return a few weeks ago, the large man had been keeping his cock in his hand and trying to keep it hidden enough that his boyfriend didn’t feel poorly about it all. 

         Placing the paper on the table in their kitchen Hastalik was obviously distressed, a furrow over his brow. If the problem wasn’t so serious he actually might have looked sort of sexy, he’d come home from a photoshoot and immediately undone his black shirt so it hung loosely around his chest, sleeves rolled up and formal pants still on and buckled with a sterling silver buckle that matched the myriad of rings he wore. “I was trying to find my earnings for last month and this was in the drawer,” Hastalik stated.

          “It says your name and that you’re negative for chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes, and a bunch of others, one that I’ve never even heard of,” Hastalik stated, one that seemed specific to werewolves from the latin used. “What the hell am I looking at, Jamie?”

“Oh I am right there with you, it would be way too nice for him to let me sleep.”She laughed. She had done it a few times and she didn’t mind it but she also still enjoyed having her lie in every once and a while. She looked over at him, watching as he began to set everything up.

“Yeah that sounds like a good idea to me, I shouldn’t take too long cleaning it up. Oh yeah the list, I have it over here.”She walked over to the counter and grabbed a piece of paper. “Yeah of course I could hold them up for you. It works perfectly, looks like a pretty good set up already.”

          “Guess if you’re a vamp or something it’s not that bad,” he pointed out, things coming together pretty quickly. It wasn’t an elaborate shoot fortunately. Taking photos for commercial use, especially when none of those things were living and breathing tended to make things a whole lot easier. Hastalik almost immediately started to place the reflector on a stand he had, moving it and himself as he began to take photos of the shelves covered in comic books and statues and the like. 

"I - I uh - I don't know. I don't expect it is but sometimes we have to make choices, choices that aren't up to us."

"Like, what red flags do I have? The way I dress might be one? I also am sort of a clean freak which usually means I'll go through your stuff - I read Jamie's poetry books all the time -, I do not hide my porn so if you're looking for it you'll definitely find it, I go to the gym a lot."

"Oh, ha ha, Min-Ji, you're very funny."

"I have no chill, is that what you want me to say?"

Perhaps it sounded more stark to Hastalik knowing what she was and growing up like that had been a bit rough. Her human parents hadn’t known what she was and neither had Min-Ji. Her pointed ears had always been rather visible and a point of discussion among her family and classmates but her wings had been concealed for a very long time so for many years of her life she hadn’t even known she had them until a fae she met in the fae realm revealed them to her. The revelation had been quite shocking, not only that she had wings but that she was indeed a fae and the realm she’d thought had been a place in her imagination had been real. So growing up being force fed vegetables and getting sick whenever she ate them just seemed like a normal human thing and she hadn’t even considered a connection or that it might sound bad. She looked over at him when he offered her comfort for that and was confused by it but since they were live she didn’t really question it and would likely forget to bring it up later. 

“There it is chat, send the giant gummy to him,” she said as she looked back to the screen and read some of what people were posting in the chat. A new subscriber notification popped up on the screen and a little animated bunny started to do a dance in the corner, “Oh! Thanks for the subscribe MackHainey!” She read the username as it wiggled over the screen and then carried back on with the conversation. “Okay, orange juice with pulp and blood sounds horrific and I hope you’re joking about that. Why would she want to drink it and then chew it?” So many people were posting puking face emojis that it made Min-Ji laugh in response. “Right? Sounds disgusting.”

“I feel like vampires like the taste of blood as it is otherwise they would have incorporated it into food a long time ago, probably don’t even need to add sugar or salt to change the taste of it, just keep it tasting the same but change the texture somehow. Oh,” she was practically bouncing up and down in her chair, “What if we do a blood gummy? Like just make the blood jello-y! Everyone loves jello! Vampires in chat, tell me, blood gummies? Yes or no? Do I need to patent this idea?”

         Hastalik shrugged, he had no idea what went through Jamie’s friend’s weird head, least in regards to that, he probably knew too much about other stuff just because of Kemper. “You have to assume the blood gets cloated and it’s like orange pulp and cloated blood in your teeth,” Hastalik visibly shuddered at it, why had it thought it and why had he said it out loud. For a moment he considered not talking because he was probably embarrassing Min-Ji on the screen and so instead started to pull out some more Candy from the bag for them to eat.

        Hastalik had everything he believed he needed ready to help Marie with her issue. It was hard going to places and asking for the things he needed with everything going on in town, no doubt if the ERT were to ask about people purchasing strange things Hastalik would end up on the top of their list but Marie was paying him too fucking well and honestly, maybe it was messed up of him but he wanted to do this. No one usually felt comfortable with him using blood magic, even Jamie didn’t really trust him after he’d used Bellamy’s demonic blood the year prior. Hastalik was a witch, he felt more connected to himself when using what he had.

          Rings gently knocking on her door as he had the last time he came Hastalik waited, a new bag this time, filled with what he needed to work on Marie. He’d dressed similarly, all dark clothing because he didn’t want to stain any of the clothing he actually liked with blood, but rather than formal attire it was black cargo pants and a plain tee. The necklaces and rings he wore in their sterling silver always there. This would be a long night, but he was ready for it, he believed it as he exhaled sharply, waiting for her to let him inside, kind of hopeful she had BJ Burgers again...

"I actually don't know. My Mother has been in hiding since I was born, in my coven it was always taught that female witches are rare because they die during childbirth but it was actually our male leaders killing the female witches once they'd had male heirs, usually this was guaranteed through magic. For my childhood my mother reached out to me through my dreams, I believed her to be the goddess Nyx coming to me, she taught me right from wrong in that way, helped me...resist a lot of the things my father hoped to impart, and I suffered for it at the time but she did it so I wouldn't be like them, so maybe I inherited what she taught me."

“You’ve had pumpkin soup?” She made an amazed sound, “You do eat like garbage, I mean, look at what we’re having right now. This is so far away from pumpkin soup and vegetables. I really don’t like eating vegetables. My mom used to cut it up really small and sneak it into almost everything I ate because I just hated them so much.” She hadn’t lived with her parents in so long now though and rarely ever ate vegetables except on the rare occasion such as this where something in a game made them look or sound interesting and now she was wanting to try it. 

Min-Ji let out a gasp, “A whole bear made of sugar? Human sized gummy?” She laughed so hard picturing both of those things showing up at her door that she covered half her face, hiding partially behind her hands as she laughed and nudged Hastalik on the side, “Don’t give them ideas! Someone might just be crazy enough to do it! Please do not send me a giant sugar bear. I don’t know what I’d do with all that sugar. I’d end up chipping away at pieces of it and putting it into everything. Make so many sweets and baked goods I could open a pastry shop. I’m making you hungry? You’re the one talking about all this sugar,” she accused with amusement, already feeling the buzz of the energy drink making her more excitable. She reached for more, sipping it slowly so she didn’t giggle and drink at the same time and risk spitting out the drink. 

“Hmm, peaches aren’t weird. Kiwis are weird. I like them, don’t get me wrong, but the skin of a kiwi is so much more weird than the skin of a peach.” She shot the most bizarre look at him when he suddenly suggested a vampiric alternative, immediately producing a horrific face at the very idea of bloody tiramisu, “That sounds absolutely disgusting,” then she paused and actually thought about it, “Ew, okay what about not tiramisu though, soaking lady fingers in warm blood just immediately sounds awful and horribly graphic but what about popsicles? Frozen blood treats for vamps. I guess blood tiramisu could work but,” she shook her head, “I don’t know. It just sounds so bad. Maybe because I don’t drink blood. Do I have any vampires in chat? Does blood tiramisu sound good?” Then directed to Has, “Where did you even get that idea? You have a vampire friend you’re trying to entice with sweet treats?”

        The words probably sounded a bit silly to her audience, that she was so opposed to vegetables that her parents had to hide them in other foods but in all honesty, for the sugar faerie, Hastalik was surprised that her parents doing that hadn’t actually made her sick. It was natural for parents to want to deny their kids sugar but in Min-Ji’s instance...it was probably the only thing they could feed her that kept her healthy, a stark contrast to most children. Has put a hand out onto Min-Ji’s shoulder and squeezed it softly, not wanting to imagine how it would have felt to her when she was little. Her parents were at least trying to do what was best but it was probably confusing, or hell, maybe he was wrong and it hadn’t been that bad, either way, if it had been, Has wanted to let her know she could tell him about it.

        Hastalik had a feeling it would be tremendously hard for them to find Min-Ji, considering the barrier of the town, the only way to know about finding it was to even know it was there and he doubted Min-Ji was announcing where she lived to her chat. “Do not send her a giant gummy bear, send it to me,” Hastalik smiled into the camera widely.

"I grew up for the longest time thinking there were only warlocks and immortal monsters so like honestly I never thought about it. In Opulence though my favourite thing is being the least threatening person. Usually I'm so scary, here I'm a fucking teddy bear."

“Sometimes, I am coming to the conclusion that my boss doesn’t want me to have a little bit more sleep at night.”She replied with a soft laugh escaping from her lips. She did enjoy her few extra minutes in bed and thankfully her voice didn’t sound as groggy as it normally did, so maybe it was a good thing she was woken up early.

“Well I just fixed up a couple of the shelves, so that might be a good place to start, I was just giving the counters a quick clean before you arrived so I will clean them up before to picture them.”She said as she played with a rag that she had in her hands. “Well of course I can do that, I think that I was given a list of places that the boss wanted to show off, I should grab that so I don’t forget anything.”

          “Oh no way, that would be too nice of him, let you sleep? Crazy,” Has chuckled, deeper than her own laugh it echoed about the empty cafe and store. He was still pulling out equipment while he spoke with her, the light reflectors popping from the way the wires had been twisted into smaller circles in the bag.

Kemper only let out a scoff, eyes narrowed faintly in accusation at his friend’s laugh. ’Annoying’ was, obviously the only part he’d taken issue with, because it was the only part he believed to be untrue. It wouldn’t stop him, or shame him any to know they made out too much in public for other people’s liking. It was a comfort to him that every time he reached out for Bella in public he found that she was already reaching back for him.

Kemper’s brows knit together at the question, the promises he’d easily made Callie that he’d still be there for her if she needed. “Yeah. I mean not like ’see’ obviously. But… I dunno. We’ll run into each other, I told her I’d help her with stuff if she needed.” The mention of the jealous streak that seemed to run deep within their partners brought one corner of his mouth up into a crooked grin.  That, and Bella being referred to as ‘his girl’. He wasn’t sure the shine would ever wear off that one.

“Not wrong. She’s gonna hate it, and I’m gonna have to work my ass off to make up for it but…” Kemper swallowed, throat gone a little tight. “I fucked Callie’s life up when I left. I mean, I can’t understate that. I got bit and I ran and I didn’t tell anyone. There was like, clips of her on the news crying.” Kemper’s hands dropped to the grass, and he fought a childish urge to pull up fistfuls of the green blades. “I just can’t be like ’hey, not only can we not be together, I’m going to completely ignore your existence’.”

      Everything Kemper said made sense to Hastalik, that desire to help. Even with Clara gone he wore the companion ring to her own because if he removed it then her own would no longer work and she could die in the light of the sun. He should have made her a daylight ring that didn’t require him but it was too late now, the only way to fix it would be if she ever returned. Ultimately though, he’d never lose his need to protect her, he owed her that much.

         “Well hopefully our double date will help, you know? It’s not like we’d ever do that with your ex if you left Bella, pretty sure if you dumped Bella for anyone Jamie would insist I needed to change gyms and block your number,” Has joked. Jamie wouldn’t insist he had to, would simply make life difficult for him until he did it, and weirdly Has liked that, because it showed how loyal Jamie was to his friends.