Time: Sunday afternoon, Oct. 27, a couple hours before the Conclave.
Frank Kouhanek is very glad that Julian Luna cannot see him right this minute. Frank is PACING, precisely what Julian finds maddening. But right now he can't help it, still feeling the charged up, restless energy he felt pulsing through his body when Julian fucked him only a few hours ago... fucked! HIM! Mind still spinning, Frank stops for a moment to run his hands down his body, remembering how the Ventrue touched him... and more...
The mortal feels a weird exhilaration in having allowed Julian to do what he'd never, ever contemplated allowing anyone, much less another man, do to him before... but so much has changed. Changed in HIM, changed since the first taste of Alexandra's blood that fateful day. She set him on this course, sending him toward his eventual Embrace, and now he wants it more than anything.
Wants... to be Kindred. Wants... Kindred sexuality. Frank shakes his head at himself, marveling how he's evolved even since first kissing Cash last night. Like he's coming home, finding something he didn't even know was there. Suddenly grinning to himself, Frank runs a hand through his hair yet again and resumes his fitful pacing. [I want OUT of here, want to talk to Sonny, want to... GOD!]
Out in the hall, Cash is talking to Stone on his cell phone. "It's okay, man, I understand, Julian has the final say... No, be here tonight for the Conclave, the seconds are supposed to be present... Hell no, I wear leathers to Conclave all the time, don't worry about dressing up... Calm DOWN, bro, you'll do fine. Just stand behind me and only talk if you have something important to say..."
Frank starts at hearing Cash's voice, and his heart jumps. [Want to... damn!]
Shaking his head at the image of his second trying to put together a suit just for tonight's conclave, Cash knocks on the door to Frank's temporary suite.
The mortal has the door open almost as Cash is knocking. "Yeah, man, come in..." Hand in the hair. Turns, walks a stretch, comes back. "I'm going crazy in here, can't I go pop over to the PD or something?" He's barely looked at Cash yet, though he wants to.
"Can't you call Sonny if you need anything? I'd rather you stayed here, unless you need to sign papers for your leave of absence or something." Cash leans up against the doorframe, watching Frank pace, noting how the mortal "prowls" almost as much as some Gangrels.
Frank stops, looks over to Cash with something of a "look" as if to say "What?" But he says instead, "Look, man, I know you're protecting me, keeping me cooped up in here, but I'm going just a little mad here..." Abruptly he stops speaking and looks away, realizing something for the first time. [He knows. He knows about Julian... and me.] "Cash," he adds, "please?" [Are we okay on this, buddy?]
"Would a walk on the grounds help? We can even go back in the trees, get away from the house a bit. You're not a prisoner, you know. You can do whatever you please here." Cash pushes off the doorframe, and walks softly over to the mortal, grasping his shoulders and pulling him in for a hug.
The Gangrel breathes in deep, scenting the mingled smells of Frank and Julian and faint scents of spent passion. Cash pulls back and looks gravely in his childe-to-be's eyes. "Frank, we need to talk as well as walk, I think."
While Frank returns the hug gladly, even with relief, he still feels a subtle tension between them. [Julian. He can smell Julian on me, just like he teased me last night about.] "Yeah, we really do, Cash," he replies quietly, rubbing the other's upper arms with an affection he now feels and can't hide.
"I'll show you where I go to think." Cash leads the way out of the room into the hall and down the back stairs to the door that once led to the servant's quarters and now leads to a private garden and the woods beyond. A sudden thought hits the Gangrel. "Frank, you don't have a problem with 'alternate religions' do you? Where we are going is sacred space, but not Christian."
Following Cash, Frank sets his troubled thoughts aside for the moment, just glad to get the hell out of the house. When Cash speaks again, he starts. "What? Oh, hell, Cash, no, I don't really do the religion thing... something about being a cop tends to make me too cynical for a lot of... that... not that I don't respect what you might be about, of course. Just... never found solace in it myself." [Solace, yeah, what's THAT? Maybe that's coming for me... maybe I'm dreaming...]
"You may change your mind after tomorrow." Cash mutters under his breath more to himself than to Frank. The Gangrel leads the way down a path into the woods on the back side of the house. Though only a couple of acres in size, some of these trees predate the city. Cash always feels more at peace here.
Frank looks in amazement at the wooded section hidden from the house area he's been to before - so close to the city, all this... Though the streets have been Frank's home, he can get into this woods thing, oh, yeah...
The two men, after a walk of maybe five minutes, come to a clearing in the woods, a stony bank to the north and a cairn of stones in the center. Cash breathes in deep, the heavy scent of fall leaves and crisp autumn grasses. "Why the hell do we live in cities, Frank?" Cash asks rhetorically. "I feel free out here, when I can't stand the house for one more second, this is where I come. Just don't come on the nights of full moons or solar feasts if you don't want to worship in the old ways. Daedalus, Morgaine and I all follow the old gods."
The mortal looks on curiously - another thing he knows nothing about. "Ah, okay - sorry, I'm not up on that new age, er, *old* age stuff." Then he snorts in irony, a shade too close to bitterly. "But then I'm having all sorts of new experiences lately. Who knows?"
Frank is sure he's about to get chewed out, wondering if he'd gone too far with Julian, that what happened between them wasn't after all expected. [Sure, Julian just wanted to TASTE me. How to get out of this one??] He looks in the Gangrel's direction, wondering what he's thinking.
"Yeah, I kinda figured that some of what's been happening has you on edge. Here you can pace to your heart's content. I meant what I said last night, I will never abandon you, Frank, never knowingly harm you."
[Even if your lover fucks me?] Frank finishes silently what he is sure Cash is thinking, worried that now Cash is only saying what he is out of a sense of duty, that the growing bond they'd been feeling has been marred by this morning's... interlude. "Thanks," he replies in a small voice, but doesn't move.
"Frank, c'mere." Cash sits on a small boulder that's fallen off the north cliff face. Skillful hands have fashioned a seat there, but one that looks like nature formed it. Cash pats the rock gently. "Come and sit. Like last night in the park, 'fledgling'."
[Not like last night,] Frank wonders, but comes over and sits on the rock gingerly. [Here it comes...]
At Frank's perching stance on the rock seat, Cash frowns, wondering what's happened to the relaxed teasing of the night before. Then the Gangrel realizes, [Oh gods, he thinks I'm mad at him about Julian.] Cash reaches up and bodily pulls Frank in closer, tucking the mortal into his arms. "Frank, relax. I am *not* angry about Julian. Surprised it took this long, but not angry. Understand? Not mad at him for being with you, nor mad at you for being with him. You are my childe. He is my regnant. Understand?"
The touch, the embrace is oh, so welcome, but unexpected, and Frank tenses a moment before relaxing, before Cash's words sink in. [NOT mad? Whaaa?] Then he frowns at the strange word. "No..." Frank shakes his head, still bewildered that Cash can be so accepting. [Sonny TOLD me.] "No, I guess I don't. Regnant?" The other words: "You are my childe" - have still to sink in.
"Julian is my lover, you know that. We also share a bond through the blood we share, like what a sire and childe share, but rarer. You'll be learning a whole new vocabulary - words for things the mortals don't have names for." Cash leans over a lightly brushes his lips over the mortal's warm mouth. "...like the difference between a kiss and a Kiss."
Frank feels a rush of the same kinetic energy he felt when Cash kissed him last night, when Julian... [MAN!] He inhales sharply, the passion he'd been trying to get a handle on before Cash came to his room now threatening to flood him again. "Cash," he breathes, his voice suddenly husky, "teach me what I need to know, man." But again he shakes his head. "Bond... through blood?"
"We have all the time you need, my brother, my childe. When you accept my blood, Frank, you'll complete a bond between us. We'll be able to tell things about each other, emotions at least and if the other is all right."
Frank swallows with difficulty, his emotions churning with the turn of events. "We'll have a bond? But... Julian isn't your sire... those are two different bonds?" [Don't let go of me, man...]
"That just happens between a sire and childe. I felt Stevie die that morning you found him on the rooftop, he died in my mind, the link went silent and cold. He was never my lover, not even a friend, but I miss it." Cash snuggles into the mortal's warmth, enjoying the heat.
Frank holds Cash tighter, needing the physical contact. "But... you have a bond with Julian, you said..."
"The same kind of bond is possible between any two Kindred, Frank, you just have to share blood often."
"Oh..." Frank doesn't entirely understand. [SHARING blood! Oh, right, like the "Kiss"...] "Um, how often? I mean, does it happen by accident?"
"If we were to go our separate ways later, our link would degrade like mine with Stevie did, to almost nothing. But I don't want that to happen. Julian and I share blood almost daily, when we make love, usually, but not always. Blood bonds are funny things, I think you have to want it to happen, but there are tales about it happening without consent." Cash shrugs, uncertain himself. "We can ask Daedalus."
"How many people can you be bonded to?" Frank asks. He wants to ask so much, wants to be close to Cash so much, wants to kiss Cash, be Kissed... anything. [Back on track, hopefully,] Frank thinks, realizing he needed to return to their growing closeness.
"Well, Stevie had a couple dozen childer, but didn't bond any of us real tight. I don't know all that much about blood bonds. It's kinda an esoteric subject, really. I'm a little odd in that I'm bonded to Julian across clan lines, but it happens." Cash looks over at Frank, glad for the mortal's increasing relaxation in his arms.
Frank returns the gaze, wondering, hopeful.
Cash leans his forehead against Frank's, breathing in deep again, "Now you smell like him, you know. You ok with this, my brother?"
"Not as good as you, but..." Frank sighs. [One more thing to wrap the brain around.] "Yeah, I think so." He's a bit shy yet on this subject.
Cash reaches up and turns Frank's face to his. "Frank, I've been Julian's lover for nearly 50 years. In that time we spent time apart, time together, time when I was so angry with him I wouldn't speak to him. I have seen him enraged, in mourning, hurt, healing, happy. I've had a long time to understand that I'm not his only lover, but still one of the few people he loves. So I'm okay with this."
"Yeah, you said this," Frank manages a wry smile. "Thanks, man. Julian is... special to me. It means a lot that... that *this* could be. Thanks."
"You mean that Julian is your first male lover? I just hope that he isn't your only one." Cash slants a wicked, teasing smirk at Frank, hoping that it won't be misinterpreted. The Gangrel leans down to whisper in Frank's ear, his goatee tickling and cool breath brushing the mortal's skin. "That would be a pity."
Frank gulps, closing his eyes, just letting himself feel. "You know he was my first, you wolf. And you knew that last night when you danced around the fact that Julian wanted you to WAIT to Embrace me... because he wanted me himself!" Frank smiles, and brushes his own lips over Cash's cheek, his voice teasing. "You know you're the first man I ever kissed," he adds, kissing the Gangrel on the ear as well. "And no, Julian won't be my only male lover."
"Caught me, man," Cash laughs. "He asked me to wait, wanted you, man." And again the Gangrel bends over to kiss the mortal, but instead of a teasing kiss, Cash runs his hands into Frank's hair and kisses him soundly.
Again the rush of kinetic energy, and Frank pulls Cash tight against him, returning the kiss with fervor. [Man, I want him,] Frank thinks, feeling the heat build between them. [Cash, my sire... I want to call him that so bad... I want his life, his blood... his body.]
Cash reluctantly pulls back from the kiss, just like last night the desire to just *take* this mortal, to Embrace him here and now is for a moment nearly overwhelming. All the more because Cash is fasting, preparing for the Embrace tomorrow. Reluctantly, slowly, he controls himself and pulls away. "And I want you, too. Gods, I do." Cash drops his head to Frank's throat for a guilty, greedy moment, but at the last second kisses rather than bites.
Frank, feeling very aroused, gets a definite twinge in his groin when Cash kisses his throat. [YOW! And tomorrow that will be the bite of my life...] "Oh, yeah, and I want you," Frank murmurs in a low voice. "Right now..." He misinterprets Cash's pulling away, and glances around. "It's private here, man..." Taking a deep breath, he slides a hand down over Cash's groin, feeling his matching hardness.)
The Kindred's breath pants out at the mortal's touch. [Gods, Julian, we've created a monster.] is his bemused thought. "Not private enough, this is right under the flight path of the police helicopters to the bridge." Cash arches into Frank's hand unconsciously. "And besides, got no lube. I won't hurt you, man. You wanna make love outside, we'll go up to my cabin in the mountains soon, okay?"
Frank emits a groan, feeling the Gangrel's erection surge against his hand. "Soon," he echoes, though his mind is rather stuck on the "wanna make love" part. "Need you... soon..." Frank slips his hand around Cash's neck, holding on as he feels him.
Cash groans too. "Frank, you are playing with fire, man. My control's not too damn good right now."
Frank begins kissing the Kindred's face again. "What do you mean, your control?" he murmurs.
"Being able to keep the Hunger down, the Beast within, the urges you asked me about..." Cash answers, distractedly. "Hungry right now, it's harder when you are hungry."
The mortal freezes. "Hungry?" Frank murmurs, slowly sliding his hand away. Then he straightens to look at the Gangrel. "Why are you hungry?" But he still keeps Cash close, still aching for more of him.
Cash lifts his head and silver eyes stare into the dark mortal ones. "Because I am fasting for tomorrow. Frank, to Embrace a childe you have to take all their blood, more than a Kindred would need in a week." Cash drops his head onto Frank's shoulder. "I have to, Frank, walk that edge between hungry enough to take enough and still in control enough to stop. For you, my brother, my childe, I'm doing it for you."
Frank's hand slides up into Cash's hair, holding him against his shoulder. "I... I didn't realize. The Wild was getting carried away in me. Sorry, man, I don't want to risk either of us like that. I understand now." The "Wild" is Frank's private name for that bit of Alexandra's blood he'd ingested which set him on this path. Kindred blood still stirring his passions up.
Cash pulls back, just a touch, "Frank, you couldn't have known. And it's not like I'm going to go into a frenzy or something. That's the point, to stay in control." Cash grins wryly, "You're just real tempting, man."
Managing a grin as well, Frank slides his hand down to the nape of Cash's neck. "Temptation is a powerful thing for me, too, Cash, and I'm still mortal! I hope you realize that your lover has give me something of an... appetite." He looks down abruptly embarrassed, thinking of the sex he had with Julian earlier.
Cash laughs a little at that, "Yeah, well, he tends to have that effect on one." Cash grins and nudges Frank, "And you like it, eh?"
Frank's hands settle finally on Cash's waist. "Ah... it was amazing. God, I was so nervous, but I wanted it, needed it, you know?" He searches the eyes of the Gangrel, glad he can be so forthright and open with him, needing that. "Cash, it's like this is somehow symbolic of the really huge Change I'm about to make in my life... and I guess I figured that my acceptance of... of anal sex, there, I said it, my acceptance is somehow wrapped up in this other thing." He sighed, rubbing his knuckles against Cash's side. "And.. I did it, or rather, allowed it." He smiled with a little sigh. "I've been a beat cop, Cash, been in Vice, been in homicide on the force. Seen it all, and in SF you see the gay stuff plenty. Never thought of it for myself, never really gave it much thought either way. But now that I've been properly introduced..." and he rolled his eyes with a grin, for Julian Luna was certainly one hell of an introduction, "it's cool. But I gotta tell you, man. I'm afraid I'm not going to be much of a bottom, not more than sometimes. Hope that suits you. Or whomever the, ah, others will be."
Cash grins, "Well, the Kindred are almost all bisexual, so I hope you don't swear off women, my friend. As far as top or bottom, hell, it's all about passion - don't limit yourself. Personally, I switch."
Frank relaxes - he was hoping that just because he was going to be a baby Kindred, he wouldn't be expected to bottom all the time to an older male Kindred lover. "Good.. and as far as women... well, there's a certain Toreador who will either be tracking me down or I her, whenever." His grin widens, thinking of the luscious Lillie Langtry.
"You *do* like playing with fire, don't you, Frank?" Cash laughs. "THAT one can bring a strong man to his knees." [Do I tell him that she betrayed Julian... No, he'll hear the gossip and anything else will sound like I'm jealous. I couldn't believe it when Julian told me she tasted Frank in the open bar...]
The mortal chuckles, nodding. "I know, and she has." Then he frowns, remembering something. "Ah, Lillie isn't living here anymore, is she?"
"Nah, she and Julian kinda broke up after the mess with Eddie's death. She's got a place over the Haven, you know." Cash is very off-hand about Julian's off and on lover.
"Her club, right." Frank notes the lack of interest. [Someday I'll get her to talk about it perhaps...]
"She'll be here tonight, though. There's a Conclave, a meeting of Julian's advisors from the clans."
"Yeah?" Frank asks, wary, thinking immediately about the Brujah primogen. "Lock me up here, man, I don't want to get even a whiff of a certain Brujah!" [Right, all I need right now...]
"Yeah, that's not a bad idea, Stone'll have to be with me and Michael with Sonny - this is like a major thing this time." Cash runs his hands through his hair. "You won't believe everything that's going on!"
"Hey, I'm a lot that's going on..." Frank grins slyly out of the side of his mouth as is his way. "Well, at least you'll have a good distraction this evening. But what else is up? Can you tell me?"
"Sure, there's a new clan petitioning for entry to the city. AND some real vampires, not Kindred, but the real thing!! And they aren't happy about bowing to the prince."
Frank flashes on the Toronto detective who'd just started at the PD on Friday. While Nick Knight seemed altogether normal, even more so than the Kindred he'd met - [Even more than my damn, freakin' partner Sonny...], Frank remembered that Nick and his... master?... were here last week. "More of 'em, eh? And they're NOT bowing to Julian? Bet that went down well - NOT."
Sonny had told him about Nick Knight on Friday, and had deftly maneuvered schedules so Frank would not be riding with him. [Cute.] Conveniently, Frank totally forgets that Nick was going to be riding with James Ellison, a little fact that might have caused a... concern... in this household.
"That's right, the Nicholas one is a cop. - It's the same ones. DeBrabant, his sire Lacroix, a pretty Gangrel type with a Spanish name and a tall quiet one. It's the sire that is a problem, the others seem willing to abide by the Masquerade."
Frank looks concerned at his sire-to-be, wondering if Cash was feeling stress in thinking of the upcoming Conclave on behalf of his lover. Julian had revealed nothing to Frank of the city Kindred politics. "Sounds tricky. And what, did you say there was a new clan in town?"
Cash nods, a sour look on his face, "The Tremere wizards. I don't like them much, but that's just me. Julian says they are okay, and I gotta admit, their primogen is ... " Cash hunts for the word, [beautiful, stunning, charismatic...] "...easy on the eyes. And there's only a handful, maybe 30 or so. But they have already changed the balance of power in the city."
Frank reaches to touch Cash on the chest with his fingertips. "Cash, man, that's tough. They're... wizards?" His face momentarily darkens, his fingers closing on the cloth of Cash's shirt of their own volition. "Black magic practitioners??"
"Blood magic, but not for evil. At least not usually." Cash is trying very hard to be even-handed and not pass his prejudices on to his childe. "These have kissed Julian's ring. He would never allow anything evil in the city. There ARE Kindred that do true black magic, though, the Sabbat Kindred. But with any luck we'll keep the Black Hand well out of here. The Brujah are enough to cope with."
"Too right," Frank murmurs, his hand unclenching. "Brujah burn my shorts, too, buddy." His hand lays flat on the other's chest. "We'll battle 'em together, brother, keep 'em back." He sighs, knowing he's got a lot to go through yet.
Cash pulls Frank close again, remembering battles. "You are already a warrior, Frank, just like me. And there's more to Kindred life than politics and battle, thank the gods." Cash leans down and brushes a kiss across the mortal's temple, a tickle of beard against the warm skin.
"Yeah," Frank sighs, content to be in his arms, feel him close. He melts at the light kiss, and returns it by kissing him back a couple times along his cheek. "Looking forward to... that, man."
"Nights of running the forest, howling at the moon, dances in the firelight and long tales that last into the daylight. Oh, my brother, what a tale you have to tell, the mortal Gangrel who found the Kindred and loved us and hated us and loved us again....." Cash touches Frank's chin, tilting his face up for a proper kiss, cool lips firm on warm ones.
Frank kisses Cash back fervently, but carefully without the earlier urgency, respectful of Cash's need to keep a lid on things while he fasts from blood. Still, Frank gets another delightful twinge down under. A thought comes to him, and he pulls away from Cash after a bit, laughter bubbling up. "Just to check, man, but all the equipment still works in pretty much the same way afterward as before, right? No changes there, except for the cum?"
Cash laughs outright. [Blair asked me the same thing!] "You know, every fledgling I've ever known asks that! Yeah, everything works as long as you feed regularly." The Gangrel grins. "Once your body finishes changing, which takes a day or two, you'll find your senses are more acute, and you're stronger, you'll heal fast, too." [He knows about surviving mortal wounds, 'cause of shooting Julian, but let's NOT go there.]
Frank is already there, remembering with a pang when he thought he'd killed Julian. He can still feel the shock when Julian rose unsteadily to his feet after Frank gunned him down in the rose garden after Alexandra's final death. "Yeah," he murmured. "Know that one." Then he pulls himself out of his reverie. "Two days..." He sighs, and tightens his arms around Cash, pulling him in so their cheeks are together. "That's why I need this, Cash, need you close now. To get through... that. I trust you and I know you'll stick close to me then."
"Frank, I won't leave your side, I'll hold you and share the pain. I promise. And what a Gangrel vows he keeps, Frank, always." [Not like me, waking up with the shakes locked in a warehouse, cold concrete, cold voices, harsh hands.]
Frank holds the Gangrel tightly. "Yeah. Yeah, you will, Cash," he whispers. "Thanks, man."
The End
