2019-08 Home is where the heart is

[Fleur]

It feels like a dagger is being twisted in her heart, we shouldn’t be doing this.
He is right, they should not be here, they should have been death. Buried in the ground or cremated, maybe even left for animals to eat. They are the broken circle.

She looks down, breathing slowly in and out. His soft touch on her hand makes her look up. Eyes filled with sorrow, but her lips forming a smile when he touches her cheek.
Isn’t it both sweet and sick that when they talk of attempted murder it is filled with both love and sadness…?

Fleur closes her eyes and thinks about how the world would have been if they where both alive.
A sweet and innocent dream, which they are trying to mimic in certain ways.
“I understand, sorry for seeming so careless with it”

Shouldn’t she say something a bit more gangrelish…
“You know, your beast is exactly that. Your beast.
Of course it has power over the actions you both take. It is there to protect you and make sure you survive. But you can control your own predator. It is as much part of you as your hands are”
She opens her eyes but can’t look straight at him for this ‘lesson’
“As a human you had a ‘Beast’ as well. They only difference is that you know are more depended on that part of yourself. Before this diabolical way of survival wasn’t a thing”

[Duncan Ackerley]

He never quite had a way with words, unlike his brother, and that much became apparent when he sees Fleur's expression, like he just stabbed her with a unsharpened butter knife. Whatever she hears in the meaning of his words, he hopes she recognizes that whatever he feels is mostly fear. Fear for himself, but mostly fear for her. He has no doubt they would be quite the opponent to each other when it would come down to a real fight, even without her claws, but he doesn't really want to find out, ever.

Now he knows why she brought the blood bag, it isn't a careless thing at all. Quite thoughtful, actually. But it's too late, he can't really take his assumptions back anymore. Whatever kind of frightened, abused pitbull he would portray himself as, he doesn't want to be like that after almost seventy years of which fifty was in this mad world of vampires. It tires him the hell out. But he doesn't know how to get rid of it.

When she starts to talk about the Beast, he can't help but smile weakly as he looks up at her, in an attempt to take in her words as he listens. He doesn't know all that much about other people's Beasts but he knows that Tanner more than often ensured him that the Brujah had more trouble keeping it at bay, or in control and that other clans had less effort of doing so; like a ticking time bomb in the form of a permanent temper tantrum. As she expresses she thinks humans have a Beast as well, he starts to from. It doesn't sound all that strange, to be honest; biologically speaking, as far as he knows, humans are animals just as much as any other mammal. Just more intelligent through evolution. Would the curse of being a kindred simply just awaken that side of them more, because of the bloodlust? It doesn't sound all that impossible.

"I've always handled i' as an addiction-" Duncan explained, to throw in his own point of view. "Or a mental illness, maybe. I's part of you, forever, but there's ways to be able to deal with it better. I've known the lust for blood since I was a ghoul, so that's not all too unfamiliar. In your head, you're just as dependant on it, even if kindred need it to survive and you just need to make sure your addiction gets encouraged."
He scratched the back of his head as he continued: "So far I've been able to recognize the difference between my addiction talkin', or my Beast, and myself. That's already pretty difficult to keep apar', so at least I've accomplished tha'." With a hesitant gaze, he wrapped his arm loosely around Fleur's waist in a need for closeness. "How have you dealt with your Beast, or your addictions, so far? Just- tell me if it's too much to talk abou'."

[Fleur]

When he wraps his arm around her waist, she steps in closer. Giving him a quick kiss on his cheek to then bury her face in his neck, almost as if she is seeking shelter with him.
“I’ve never looked at it as an addiction, only the blood bond I have to Vid or the one I used to have to SC, those are the addictions for me”
She thinks back on how difficult, if not almost impossible, it was to deny an offer of blood from SC. Still unsure how she managed to do it that one faithful night, but she did and that is the most important thing.

“For me I don’t seem to have such a problem with keeping my beast in check. Maybe it is because I haven’t really had the need to or stressful situations”
She thinks back on that big bonfire “There was this one time I accidently walked towards a big bonfire, that scared the hell out of me. And when Vid trained me on how little we need to survive, the moment I could drink from him I lost it”

She now holds up one hand showing her black nails to him “But for me losing control to my beast means I become it more and more. Losing myself a little every time”

[Duncan Ackerley]

Before he know it he blurts out: "You also have a blood bond with y-" but manages to stop himself mid-sentence, too embarrassed to continue. He closes his eyes and inhales deeply as Fleur notices him tensing up a little, like he was about to tell her a secret. It takes him a moment to collect himself again as he tries to relax and lean his head against hers.

"Maybe," he says in answer to how much she has been able to control her Beast. When it comes to stressful situation she might not be wrong; he's known no calm moment since he was Embraced. Even now, in relative safety, he has trouble coming to grips with the fact that he's also able to relax. Only when he's truly and absolutely distracted, something Tanner only managed to do to that level, he is able to find a moment of mindlessness and silence that gives him a sort of peace. Whether or not that has to do something with his Beast isn't easy to say, but he's not ready to continue thinking about that at the moment. "I'm sure no Beast is the same, either," he continues after a moment of contemplation.

He gazes sidewards when she holds up her hand to show him her black nails. He never realized it wasn't just nailpolish or something. It takes him a few moments to realize what that means and he slowly leans back a little, looking up at her a little bashfully about how disturbed the realization is.
"Does that mean you's gonna change into-" he halts himself and tries to say things a little more thoughtfully: "I mean, are there visual aspects to your Beast? Growing... fur, or... claws? I heard about that claws but I thought tha' was just a metaphor for somethin' else."

[Fleur]

Fleurs smile is soft and sweet
"Yes i have a bloodbond to my Sire if that is the thing you wanted to say"

She looks at her own black nails, the family traith she has with Vid.
"Everytime I loose control and get into a frenzy my beast will grow stronger and indeed more to the surface. These black nails are from my embrace"

She looks to Duncan now, lowering her hand "SC told me that if i should become a brujah it will be harder to stay calm. When i was still a ghoul i could feel it, the.... anger is not the right wore... restlessnes?"

[Duncan Ackerley]

He shakes his head in confusion as she confirms once more that she and Vid indeed have a blood bond. Did I just miss that or am I really that stupid? Didn't she already mention it before? He contemplates the idea for a moment and the images that appear in front of his mind's eye weird him out. It doesn't help that he already knows that they're also lovers, apart from Sire and Childe and that Vid is barely as old as Fleur. Kindred are fucking weird.

When she redirects his attention to her nails again he asks: "But you can hide those things right? Otherwise you'd at some point break the Masquerade by just going outside..."

At her question, or rather statement, he nods in confirmation. "Tanner told me before that Brujah have more of a temper, for some reason. Our Beast tends to be... easy to lure out. And really angry when i' is. Then you ge' why I get so nervous around blood when you're there too." He frowns as he realizes that she must at least know about it a little bit, having been SC's ghoul. "So you sort of know what it feels like. I also felt it before when I was a ghoul, just never realized it was the blood speaking."

He frowns as he returns to a previous subject. "Does Vid also have a blood bond with you?"

[Fleur]

Fleur looks a bit worried “No I can’t…not yet anyway. I know Groot can do it and Vid can do it as well I believe, so maybe they can teach me”
Brujah are interior decorators and Gangrel are fluffy cuddle puppies. Simple and easy to understand.

Time to go back to that other topic.
When he asks about Vid being bonded to her, she is unsure what to say.
Telling the truth? Telling a lie? Telling not want to tell him is an answer as well…
She sighs and looks at the frown on his face
“Yes Vid has the type of blood bond you have to Parker and Parker has to you”
Truth it is

[Duncan Ackerley]

Duncan frowns as he takes that information in, but when she gives him that very specific example about the blood bond he has with Thomas he frowns even deeper. He does notice the slight discomfort in her body language, even though he doesn't register it as such per se, but he feels that something is off. He doesn't know why- is this a secret she doesn't really want to share? She's shared worse, so far. Like the fact that she's of the fae folk. The creatures he thought were only folklore in England, but apparently are alive and- not really breathing in this case, or alive... anyway.

"Do you mean you only renewed it once, lightly? It's not a strong, deep bond in blood?" he decides to ask. She can always say it if she doesn't want to talk about it. "And do you feel any influences from it- I mean- that i' clouds your judgemen' sometimes? Give the other an easier time when you don' really want to... or... get all those weird feelings when they do stuff or don' do stuff-"

He realizes that he's ranting, so unlike himself to do, and he just shuts up in the middle of the sentence with an awkward, wide-eyed gaze towards Fleur.

[Fleur]

She hoped a bit he was done asking about this.
Fleur sighs again and now clearly looks uncomfortable.
"I don't want to talk about the blood bond Vid has to me, it feels like I am telling his story"

She thinks back on the one and only time (Up till now) that the bond forced her to do something.
"Have you had those moments?" She asks carefully, for now she can't yet admit to herself that the bond already did that.
"It feels so off when it happens... right?"

[Duncan Ackerley]

Even though she's in her right, of course, not to answer to both the subject of the bond and the effects, especially when she finds she first another's story to tell, he flushing a little, the pink clearly showing on his cheekbones as he steps away from her again, pulling away the arm that has laid around her waist up until that point. Of course she doesn't need to tell me anything. I mean, she doesn't owe me anything. We all have our secrets. Why would I be the one special enough to hear about it? His body language shows he's just as uncomfortable, even about asking those kinds of questions, but there's something about it that feels like he almost needs to ask. Maybe because Fleur is the first one that he ever felt comfortable enough talking about it.

"Yeah," he says in answer to her question about the effects. "I know all about i', also from when I was a ghoul. But that was voluntary and I didn' mind as much with Tanner, back in the day. I got used to it soon enough." He frowns as he paces around the room, restlessness clearly showing, unable to just sit down and talk about what he wants to say. "I don' know with Parke'. He seems to suffer more from i' than I do. To no surprise of course- because he hasn' go' a clue what it feels like. He didn't experience anythin' like it before it, I think." He clears his throat as he turns back around to Fleur, meeting her gaze for only a short moment, showing a mirage of different emotions that she can't really define clearly. "For me, I jus' accept him as a mate much easier than I would've anyone else, in such a short time. And I fel' fokkin' worried when the Inquisition attack 'im and he barely made it out alive. But I've never been a people person, or overly worried, ever. So- I guess I deal with it be'er, or somethin'?"