Test my patience

                     “I worry for your poor mother,” he chimed, his tone embellished with such banter set only for Lucian; a coy sense swathing every syllable. “— Sigils? They sound bloody extreme to me, but what the hell do I know about introductory magic and the like. I’m sure there’s levels I could have never even dreamed about nor heard of. Though, I’ll admit,” hues flickered up in matched roguery to his perpetual grin, “I’m relentlessly intrigued. Is it possible to teach a magic dud like myself the rules of magic?” Eyes wandered in tandem to the notebook that Lucian had glanced at, soon walking over as digits near tenderly traced any visible scripture that remained, brows knit in enamored perplexity. “Soundproof the place.” It rolled off his tongue as more of a statement than a plausible inquiry, glancing up from the scribbled sigils as he watched each movement from the witch near attentively, “I’m not sure what you think I’m up to in my spare time.” Tongue rolled to coat his bottom lip, breaking out into a near diffident smile, eyes permeating with more redolent fumes. 

“I grew them back.” His tone was purposefully coy but it didn’t last. This kind of thing was always going to be exciting, introducing magic to people for the first time. But Mal had used the phrase ‘introductory to magic’ specifically and...There was a lot he could teach him. A lot he wanted to teach him. Both to show off and bring him a bit more up to speed on what was happening around him. 

But mostly…

Straightening up a bit and nodding towards the pages, he tried to ignore the sheer giddiness in his gut and focus on explaining. “Sigils and stuff and pretty introductory, actually. They’re all made up of runes which are pretty much the ABC’s of magic. How you arrange them is how you give them power. But I mean, if you’re me, they also have to look as aesthetically pleasing as possible.” Reaching to flip back a couple of pages, a wry grin pulling at the corners of his lips, Lucian gestured to a progression of symbols. All the same, just arranged differently near underlined labels of rooms in his apartment. Everything was done in pen, the ink aged and etched into the page portraying bulkier, almost harder to make out symbols, versus the fresh ones that were cleaner. The difference between eighteen and twenty-four. “I mean, you normally can’t see them anyways, but it’s a matter of pride.” He was only half joking, eyes leaving the page to glance up at Mal before flipping a few more pages. 

The notes were messy, half printed, half cursive scribbles in Latin marked under certain rooms. He pointed at one in particular under ‘Bedroom’. “And yes, soundproof the place.” His tone was particularly matter-of-fact despite his slight smirk. “You want your neighbors to listen to whatever shenanigans you get up to at 3AM?”

Coming full circle to face his younger brother, Hudson couldn’t have truly expected anything less than the mild panic that seemed to blossom on Luc’s features. Contorted and mottle with a breed of anxious confusion that should have met any such Tallis in the face of the darkness that Hudson quite literally lived in. It didn’t take much for him to feel the waves of uncertainty wash over the other, the very shift in the air around him just enough for him to cave so willingly to being okay with what he was surrounded by, though he knew that it wasn’t truly possible for any other to feel such a way without finding some sense of familiarity within it. The rough of his hand pulled slowly across the expanse of his mouth and jaw. There was no real way to explain it, truly, showing any single one of his family was something that he knew would be the only way to get his point across. 

The Tallis coven were renowned for their striking sense of power, all of which was used for the very opposite of everything that lay within the confines of Hudson’s home. He’d held such little care and now that he’d quite literally exposed such a harrowing piece of himself, he didn’t exactly know how to back it up with some sense of explanation that might have stuck well enough. Telling any single one of them that he happened to enjoy the feeling of drawing the powers of another witch right out of their life source, nor could he claim his affinity for the stark premise of death that clung to such an art form. Those, he intended to remain as ominous as possible where his craft was concerned. “Freshman year.” He nodded slowly, offering some pinpoint within a timeline. “Screwed around with some things that.. very clearly I shouldn’t have and it just kind of….” Blossomed from there, an addiction that he knew there was such little cure for. He paused, eyeing his brother carefully, trying to gauge some sense of thought or reaction from him, but finding little more than the same uncertainty and confusion, he pressed on. “When I left a few years back I was.. out of control.” By anyone else standards at least, by his own? He had more power than any Tallis trip might have given him. “At first I had every intention of just.. doing my job, finding something dark that could point me in the direction of something useful.” At least until he’d found something much sweeter. “Didn’t really go to plan, but.. what I did find wasn’t exactly discouraging either.”  The lowly steps he’d taken were without destination it intention, something to occupy the silence that fell between Hudson’s voice. Rubbing the back of his neck as if it might have sparked something else he could say, he knew that there was little else than the truth that mattered now. “I told you once before that it wasn’t my choice to come back, and if I’d had any say in the matter, I’d still be gone.” Teeth caught the inside of his cheek, nodding slowly in some attempt to steel himself for what came next. “I uh.– hurt a lot of people, stole a lot of things that were never meant to be taken. By the time someone was there to stop me, I’d almost killed myself by using too much and the coven dragged me back here to..– detox.” 

“They dragged you back.” Lucian repeated, trying to process it. That was the real kicker that shattered the new perception of his eldest sibling. Hudson leaving had been shitty, everyone had spent so much time resenting him for it and it’d been the one thing he hadn’t really blamed him for. Hudson had wanted independence, that was still true. What he’d done with that freedom hadn’t been questionable, it crossed any moral ambiguity. He said he’d hurt people and the way he was holding himself, the general discomfort, the look in his eye, had Lucian thinking it wasn’t just some emotional shit.

He wanted to ask about it.

“I don’t…” Know what to do with this. At all. He let the sentence hang in the air as he clasped his hands together in front of him, fingernails biting lightly at his skin. Everything was right there out in the open now. Months prior, he’d pointed out how he didn’t feel so different from Hudson. In a weird way, he’d found some comfort in knowing that they’d both just accepted that they had things they were hiding. Were they having some kind of goddamn confession now? Was Hudson baiting him? Or was he just tired of pretending?

Some childish part of him wanted to give himself a pat on the back for not caving first but it was a feeling quickly snuffed out by more questions that left him feeling….Disappointed? Guilty? Worried for where the fuck his brother’s soul was going to go? The conflict went deeper than that. Before this, he had been hellbent on not judging Hudson, because he sure as hell wasn’t the most morally sound Tallis at times but this was well beyond anything he’d ever done.

“What the fuck do you want me say here? Am I supposed to be asking for details?” The scoff Lucian gave was out of sheer frustration and he found himself gesturing vaguely around the room before putting his hands together again. Elaboration on the entire situation was something he wanted and yet, he had no idea if he could handle it. As far as he was concerned, he’d just got Hudson back. 

He wondered who else knew, aside from their parents. Obviously not their siblings. There was no way they’d still be on speaking terms with him. An idea which added more fuel to the tangle of things he was feeling. Hudson trusted him with this and despite its severity, he couldn’t help but feel a little touched he’d been told at all.

“Who else knows?” Their parents, definitely not their siblings. Members of the Tallis coven were probably sworn to secrecy. Leaning back, Lucian sank down in the couch cushions and crossed his arms over his chest, eyes set on the stone table. Nixon, he wanted to ask if Nixon knew. If the vampire had been keeping their secrets from each other this whole time.

Hudson certainly didn’t want for his siblings to feel any ounce of resentment towards the choices their own coven had made, but the longer it went on, the more he found it impossible to look past knowing everything they’d known and feeling entirely different about retribution. It’d started by simply claiming to wish to keep a level, neutral ground, and beyond that — it seemed little more than wiping their own hands clean and watching in hope that such war wouldn’t encroach on their own lives. Until it did. He’d never forget finding Dylan the way he had, nor the fact that there might have been every chance to do something then with a weapon in their hands, but before he’d even been able to question it, the coven had covered it up like it was nothing. “The good of the many,” he spoke quietly, a little more indifferent to the idea the Tallis elders had towards their reach among the community. 

Lips rolled together at his brothers near depreciating comment; a stark notion that the last two years had been filled with too much that Hudson’s greatest secret would barely touch the boundaries of insane; a lackluster hope that Luc could keep such a mindset as he crossed the room. The depth of illusion that etched itself to the walls of Hudson’s apartment far deeper than most truly understood, many of their kind keeping things out of view for as long as any of them could remember. The ancient coin he drew from his back pocket stained black in places and no longer held it’s shine, even less so as Hudson snatched up a small blade and drew it across a vein within his arm. Spilling over to coat the coin until crimson turned black and outstretched it’s hold until it morphed to dust, the room hazing over momentarily to break the entirely functional illusion that his living room didn’t perch existence over a much darker place. The extensive collection of dark magic objects and the like scattered the stone bench that appeared where his coffee table had once been, the bookcase and it’s contents no longer filled with grimoires known to their family name, but older and intricately bound by worn damaged leather and other.. unspoken mediums. The sofa his brother once sat little more than entirely out of place now as Hudson turned back to him, little else to do other than await his reaction.

What the fuck.

Confusion and surprise flickered across his face before Lucian settled on complete and utter disbelief. In any other situation, he was sure it would have been comical how he looked from one part of the room and back to Hudson and then back again. His gaze settled on where the coffee table had once stood. Wood replaced with stone, normal living room shit replaced with objects practically giving off an aura of dark energy. It was almost like black magic had completely engulfed the place. It felt more than a little off and he went from being comfortably sat on the couch to feeling like he wanted to be miles away from the place.

“Are you fuckin’ serious?”

What the fuck did this mean? Multiple scenarios ran through his head at once. None of them good. Hudson was obviously into some shit. Had been into it? Was still into it? He was afraid to ask. But this, the bookshelf, the grimoires on the ‘coffee table’, this was a cumulation of work not just done in a week or two. Opening his mouth to speak again, he abruptly closed it and sat forward. His hands smoothed over his face, slid up into his hair and rested at the back of his neck, eyes stuck on the carpet.

And then he let out a short bark of laughter before shaking his head.

“All this time, huh?” Leaning back, he finally looked to Hudson. Hudson the golden boy. Hudson the perfect son. So out of place among all of this darkness. But he didn’t look uncomfortable, in fact, he almost seemed at ease. To say he was shocked was an understatement, but ultimately, he couldn’t help but feel guilty. He’d spent years wrongfully resenting his eldest brother to begin with. He’d spent time on many a mental tirade about how supposedly perfect he was but suddenly things seemed to make a bit more sense. Because at some point, Hudson had deviated from that ‘perfect’ image. Over the last year, Lucian had settled on that Hudson had perhaps been too pressured by the family and had grown to resent the coven a little. But now there was probably more to that.

“Go...Ahead and explain?” It was meant to be a statement, but it came out as a hesitant question. He’d burnt through too many emotions and thoughts in such a short span of time that he was just left looking at his brother at a loss.

                    “I’m all about surprises for you, blue eyes,” he started, a grin of elated surprise nestling on porcelain mien at the realization of Lucian’s own near effortless content he seemed to find in the shifter’s home. Certain aspects of the city had left Mal in a state of perpetual inquietude, especially in the case of a certain Tallis witch who seemed more wrapped up in said affairs than he could dare admit, raising a brow at the flaxen male’s current state; roguishly so. “Though it’s safe to say you’re keen on one upping me,” he snickered, slipping his own jacket off in face of the heat that dared swarm them. Lucian was a tricky subject, to sum it up simply; knowing full well if he pushed too far with his own sense of relentless teasing, the witch could regress out of is own senseless trepidation, Mal offering a nod as if finding Lucian like this was as normal as anything, “You haven’t taken on arson in your free time, have you?” — Simmer into it all slowly, let Lucian find his own niche in whatever relationship he dared not confirm; either way, Mal was just content with the fact the witch was still here, considering the city’s own issues. 

“This is nothing. I used to set my mother’s hedges on fire for fun.” And the curtains, the occasional dust ruffle, and atrocious decorative pillow. “Just protective sigils. Nothing too extreme.” Wiping his hands on his jeans, the ash hidden against the black denim, Lucian offered a wry smile. His own apartment was like a fucking fortress and he’d admit it. Sound proofing spells, sigils etched into corners of windows, onto candles, mirrors, under carpets, fucking everywhere. That felt too far to do to a place that wasn’t his without permission. “Kind of a habit. Put one on the door of the bedroom but that’s as far as I went.” His gaze moved from Mal to the notebook he’d left open on the coffee table beside him. Various runes compiled together to make the sigils as aesthetically pleasing as possible were spread across the page, a couple crossed out. They weren’t anything anyone was going to see, but it was the principle of the thing. “I could soundproof the place if you want. Doesn’t take too long.” He gave a casual shrug of his shoulders as he reached for the cup of coffee he’d set aside. The cup was cold to the touch and he didn’t think much of tapping his fingers against the side of it to warm it up a little, the too familiar rush of warmth at his fingertips, before taking a sip from it. 

In which Lucian had truly come to find out what Hudson might have known. An expertise that ran far deeper than any of them might have imagined. Poisons residing solely in the realm of harmful, black magic for a reason. The vial that his younger brother placed down was enough to draw a deep set frown into his forehead as he reached for it. “What happened to them? Whoever this blood came from?” He knew some had been taken over by the same contagion that’d left Nixon curled in on himself out of paranoid fear, but there were a great many uncounted injuries that he knew didn’t make sense — the plight of the ouroboros didn’t leave everyone to the whims of falling rubble and flame. He shook his head, “Mom and dad wouldn’t have..—” Biting his tongue, he paused long enough to divert his train of thought, “You know they would have just handed this off to the coven and left it with them.” A bitterness in his parents choice to remain so stoic throughout all of this. They could have done something long before this. “I might be able to figure something out.” A lingering hint of possibility that might not have surfaced if his brother had gone to their parents; and a heavy weight that sought to carve out the bottom pit of his stomach as he stood, almost hovering in place as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’m gonna’ show you something, I need you to promise not to..– just don’t lose it, okay?”

“I know. And by doing so, they’d guarantee nothing would come of it.” Every time he really thought he was useless, he remembered they had whatever had killed Dylan in their grasp and nothing had ever come out of it. Lucian didn’t think he’d ever understand it. Growing up he’d always felt this pressure of responsibility, like he was supposed to uphold something. That he was supposed to be useful to the community, ready to help it. They hadn’t done anything. All this power and they’d put in minimal effort. Put out the fires, repair some buildings, heal some people. People were dying, storybook villains were still at large, and Noah was dead. That was a rant he didn’t need to give. At this point, he felt like Hudson agreed to an extent.

That didn’t mean he didn’t look at him curiously as he sat forward on the couch, brow raised. “I’d like to think not much could surprise me at this point.” It was a blunt joke but he couldn’t help but feel something seize in his chest. Excitement or anxiety, he wasn’t sure what it was. He trusted Hudson, but he knew there was a lot, or at least it seemed to be implied, that there were a lot of secrets between the two of them. Secrets that maybe they couldn’t afford to keep anymore. His own seemed trivial in the grand scheme of things now.

Mallory raised an unimpressed eyebrow at the young witch for stating the obvious. “I’d think not. You’re sitting in my living room,” she answered, passively. Had he actually been her employee she would have fire him for insubordination ages ago. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. “If you’re unwilling to complete the task that’s fine, Lucian. I’ll find someone else to do it.”

“No, I’ll figure it out.” The statement was out of his mouth before he’d really thought about it. A desperate attempt to keep in her graces. Despite the blooming issue between the two, he wasn’t about to deny her this. Not something that was obviously so important to her. She wanted results and he’d do his best to get them to her. On his own terms though, he couldn’t imagine just parading this to the whole Tallis coven. No, he’d go to Hudson and hope it could be kept between the two of them for the time being. He figured they’d gotten to a point in restoring their relationship that his eldest sibling would kind of allow him the secrecy. “Ultimately we want to be able to find these people, correct?” Shifting in his seat, straightening his posture a bit, Lucian’s tone went from soft to more businesslike. That was always easier, a way to detach himself emotionally. He’d worry about how her words stung later. “So the idea of fighting them isn’t far off.” This felt like something, actual progress. Dwelling on it too long felt heavy, like a weight on his chest. But he had to see this through, he wasn’t about to run off now, even if he wanted to.

Josefine inhaled steadily, considering the question and its potential source. Ever since she’d given him access to her substantial library–her own grimoires included–he’d become a little more interested in her history, particularly where Sela was concerned. Until about a year ago, the vampire could hardly stand to say her sire’s name, but time and the ability to talk about her regularly made the memory sting less. “It’s okay to ask,” she assured him with a vague wave of her hand. Silence followed as Josefine considered. Love–real, not infatuation–always seemed to catch her off guard, making it difficult to pinpoint when exactly she felt that way. It was the same with Holden. He was so deeply ingrained and important to her life and she wasn’t quite sure when that happened. 

“Ah… I don’t exactly know when I started to love her,” she answered at length. “I was attracted to her instantly when I met her. But I think I consciously knew I loved her when my family made me chose. They were already furious that I’d been spending a lot of time with her, but I–” She stopped herself, lips quirking into a strange sort of smile as her head tipped slightly to the side, unsure if how much he really wanted to hear about that part of her life. “I was their oldest daughter. My brothers were older than me, and I had two younger sisters. And back then, when you were married–particularly among people of my family’s status–you were expected to be a virgin. It was for archaic reasons–purity and the sake of children. You didn’t want someone else’s son laying claim to your family’s wealth or power or whatever else,” she explained, then sighed softly and continued. “So it was bad enough I was a well-to-do witch spending most of my time with the monster outside of town, but finding out I’d been doing more than sitting in her library reading meant they had to do something drastic to repair my–their–reputation. They told me I could renounce my affiliation with her and never see her again–marry the man they selected for me, have children, be a good wife–or I could take exile. I would be shunned, essentially. And given that ultimatum, my family or her… I picked her. Because I loved her. I think I was 22 or 23 at the time.” She paused, then wrinkled her nose and eyed him. “I’d imagine that’s a little more dramatic than you were hoping.”

Lucian managed to hold his tongue at the mention of purity, but he did roll his eyes. It’d been a different time for sure, and in a political way, he got the whole ‘powerful families wanting to make powerful marriages and kids’ thing. But that didn’t make it right and he for sure couldn’t imagine Josefine being forced into that kind of life. And yet, if under her own terms, he could see her as the family type. Big house, few kids running around, partner of her choice dutifully at her side and beaming at her. She’d be a great mother, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind about that. He found himself lost for a moment, picturing her in Italy. Still a witch, a couple kids gathered around her as she read from a grimoire, watching her with wide eyed admiration.

“I can’t imagine ever giving you that choice and thinking you were going to agree to stay.” Seemed more than a little ridiculous to even entertain the thought. A small smile of admiration pulled at the corners of his lips as he looked to her. That was one of the things he liked best about her. Josefine was free, he knew that. She was strong and opinionated, she cared deeply and she stuck to what she believed in. But there was some kind of whimsical sense to these stories. She’d run off to be with someone she loved, threw all caution to the wind and just followed her heart. That was more than a little admirable. At one point in his life he’d have considered growing emotionally attached to someone enough to want to up and leave everything for them to be a weakness, something he’d balk at the mere idea of. He knew now that it took a lot of strength. “You didn’t have any regrets?”

Clover had two entirely separate wardrobes for his daytime and Red Cross looks. It was a pain on the wallet, but it helped to differentiate the soft-eyed cat lover from the boyish vampire that’d bare it all for a few dollars. A big bee sat in the middle of his crew neck tee and his blue jeans were boot cut, most certainly the only pair he owned at all. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he wore a pair of clear frame glasses. He was hardly identifiable, yet this man’s scrutinous gaze seemed to be able to bridge the gap of aesthetics with an ease that was unsettling. The last thing he wanted to do was have this sort of conversation, whether in public or in private. He was here for cat food. Where was this man’s decency? 

“Probably not, bro,” he answered, perfectly mimicking a standard New York accent. Clover flipped the switch so fast, it alarmed even himself. “White guy with brown hair and blue eyes ain’t exactly a rare combination around here. I’m dumb generic.” He continued to pick various cans from the stock in front of him, only chancing a glance over when he realized that the treats were closer to the other man. He knew exactly who this witch was. If it were possible for the floor beneath him to open up, he’d sooner perform an Olympic gold medal worthy dive into the abyss than have this conversation. Hold it together. “I need to get at the treats beside your head, so…” He needed to keep his voice icy if he was going to be able to put on this rouse for longer than a few seconds.

No, definitely the same guy, he could feel it. Granted, it was kind of a dick move to call him out in public, Lucian would admit that. Maybe he was embarrassed about that whole ordeal, too. They hadn’t seen each other since, not really. It’s not like when he’d spent time at the Red Cross around all the dancers anyways. He wondered if ‘Clover’ had a day job and how much of what he’d seen that one night had been an act. Because it’d been something he’d called him out on, shitty acting. Not adapting to customers and treating him like the usual patron. Which sounded even more arrogant in his head, but as someone who used to be pretty good at adapting to what he thought people wanted from him, he’d spoken out of a place of annoyance and not constructive criticism. It’d been a different time, he wasn’t quite sure if he was supposed to be apologizing for it or not. “Sorry.” Stepping aside with a slight nod, he couldn’t help but feel a bit sheepish. Vampire stripper picking up cat treats, that was interesting. “Fellow cat person?”

There would always be a line Hudson wasn’t willing to cross. He could conjure up devastation poisons with no cure known to man, with nothing to slow it down, and yet telling his brother that meant leaving a whole lot unexplained, and knowing Luc like he did; he knew the questions that would follow. It’d only been more recently that he’d managed to hold onto some semblance of a relationship with him, and destroying that with the greatest lie he’d ever told didn’t feel right this day. “I know a little and a lot,” Not helpful, he knew that much. Though, the more he thought about it the harder he knew this would be, conveying the truth to his brother without really doing it. The near harmless flicker of fingers methodical revealing the proper state of the bookcase that lay ceiling high in his own living room; filled with both white and black grimoires. “Whatever you want to know, if you can’t find it in the family library.. it’s probably in here somewhere.”

“Fuck reading.” Figuratively, for the moment at least. “I’ve spent too much time reading. Time to do something.” Anything at all, he was tired of sitting around and he figured Hudson was, too. Straightening up a bit, Lucian leaned forward to set his cup on the coffee table before fishing the vial out of his coat pocket. “So I figure we try to isolate whatever the fuck is in this.” He set that down on the table too, right between them. It was probably more than a little ominous, having someone show up with a vial of blood. However he didn’t really think Hudson would ask a lot of questions. They kind of seemed to have some sort of understanding about that now. However he still figured he owed some kind of explanation. “It’s from somebody who was there New Year’s Eve. Friend gave it to me, not much they could do with it. Didn’t want to run and take it to mom and dad. It’s not much, but figured you were sick of just sitting around, too.” 

“I wouldn’t know. Nor do I care to find out,” she replied, completely unconcerned with the effects of the poison on herself. “You can do whatever you want, Lucian. Just get me the information,” Mallory answered, waving her hand dismissively at the notion. They’re relationship wasn’t nearly as strong as it had once been and she wasn’t sure it would ever be. Not with Josefine anywhere near the picture. The vampire had come to terms with it. People didn’t every stick around for long whether it was by choice or not.

“I’m not one of your employee’s, Mallory.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at her but that was probably for the best. He knew things weren’t the best between them at the moment, but they seemed far worse than he’d thought. Lucian almost wanted to lash out at her but his tone was even, soft even. No, he wasn’t about to make this worse, he felt small enough. Elbows resting on his knees, he smoothed a hand through his hair and turned his gaze to the floor as he let out a slow breath. He wanted to tell Hudson about this, that was his first thought. This was something important and he needed to act here, he wasn’t about to just sit with the vial at home.