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I didn't mean to fall asleep at Con's eldritch cave, but it had been a really shitty night despite all the technical victories. I wasn't thinking of anything but the trip there while we were making it, my hand firmly in his, then once we arrived it felt oddly familiar and safe. The decor was still ugly as a jotun's hoary ass, don't get me wrong-- I still wanted to redecorate its creepy-Gothic sensibility with a sledgehammer and some windows-- but at the same time, I knew in my bones that the lack of windows in a cave deep underground also meant nothing uninvited could ever, ever reach me here. For all I knew, it didn't have any doors, either. It might have been built by one of the bad guys, but it was Con's now and Con was my...
I sank into the gargoyle-backed couch and fell asleep on his shoulder without deciding on either vampire or friend as the right word to fit in that gap, friend vampire friend chasing around my tired brain like hellhound puppies: going to grow up to be a problem one day, but hard to resist liking at this stage. Right now my vampire and my friend sounded about equally comforting, times being what they were, and I sure needed some of that.
Next time I opened my eyes I felt like I was going to stay awake. It was quickly followed by feeling guilty: Con was choosing my company for a few more hours over eating when he was hungry, but I hadn't been much company. My face, I discovered, was mashed into the grey skin over his collarbone. He never had buttoned his shirt. He smelled like a vampire who had bathed recently in my bathtub with my bath products-- which was significantly better than a vampire normally smelled. His hair tickled my forehead when I blinked. I brushed it gently away.
"You didn't use conditioner," I told him, because that was much easier than focusing on the fact that he was surprisingly comfortable, but not as comfortable as I remembered most recently. Too bony and hard when carrying me after he'd been starving, then altogether more pleasing than he should have been when he was recovered and naked on top of-- nope, not thinking about that. I hoped he hadn't noticed my breathing speed up.
"I desired to be clean, not silky." Con's tone was as matter-of-fact and vampire as ever. That too was comforting, these days. I should probably just get used to it, since it appeared to be part of the new shape of things and I'd come to a pretty good peace with the fact that there was a new shape of things. It seemed wasteful to pitch out the entire carton of blueberries just because I'd found one on top that had a little mold. I wouldn't use them in the bakery, of course, but I'd risk it on just me at home-- after a thorough wash, anyway . And in a manner of speaking, hadn't I just given Con a thorough wash?
I touched his hair again because I could, and because the memory of him looking elegant in a slightly-too-small kimono was still fresh even if I hadn't been up to doing anything with it at the time. And maybe because the thought of giving him a thorough wash derailed from kind of sexy to just funny as soon as I imagined myself leaning over the tub with cold tiles digging into my knees while I bathed him like a large, resigned dog. "I dunno, you could use a little silky. Try it next time."
Con considered that in comfortable silence for awhile, long enough that I would have thought he wasn't going to answer at all except that I was starting to get a feel for when he was just thinking. "Perhaps," he allowed, as if it were not an entirely ridiculous request.
I couldn't help it; I started laughing, softly but so hard it shook my body. He wrapped his arms around me after it threatened to shake me off the couch, and I pressed my mouth against the nearest flat surface to muffle it, which happened to be him, and oh he went still then. He had been breathing for me until then, probably the entire time I'd been asleep; I noticed that suddenly when he stopped.
"Sunshine," he said after a long moment, and it was so unlike him to speak first that something in me froze up and I had nothing to answer with. He took long heartbeats-- my heartbeats, suddenly faster-- to go on. "Do you like tea?"
"What," I said. That didn't process. It had not exactly felt like a tea moment there.
"I have jasmine and oolong," Con told me solemnly.
I was the only person who visited his bat-cave. This was new. "You got me tea?"
"Yes."
He'd gotten me tea, so I would have something human to drink. Just in case I ever came back. I considered it for an almost Con-like length of time, my loins a little warm and my good sense a litle frayed-- and my dignity definitely unwilling to get tossed across the room by a vampire sex rejection a second time, even if this occasion was more likely to be purely figurative. "Sure. Jasmine. Please. Thank you," I added belatedly.
So he got up, and we had tea.
When I went back to work a few hours later, the one thing I absolutely did not want to make was anything that exploded juicy red innards, so Deaths of Marat were right out. Sunshine's Eschatology felt right and fitting to make again the day after I survived an came to terms with not dying, though-- bookending the revelation, as it were-- so I made a double batch of those, and then a lot of chocolate things in addition to my regular lineup. It seemed like a good day for chocolate. And meringue. I had a bain marie going before I knew it with individual ramekins of lemon meringue pudding cakes, fluffy on top and gooey at the bottom. I sent the first ones out to Mrs. Bialosky and the friend I knew she had with her. (There was nothing magical about that knowlege-- I peeked out at the customers.) I had no idea what to name the lemon things; I'd have to consult Aimil on this one.
I ate lunch out back in full sunlight because I was alive and I could, and it touched the leaves and branches of my tree the way it should. It felt like spring, although it wasn't. I was alive, and I was going to be alive for a long time, and that... that was going to be hard in ways I was outright refusing to think about, so I just focused on the nice bits. I was going to see all the movies. All of them. With my family. I was going to eat all the things. I was going to soak up sunlight and have sex and hug people more.
Could I hug Con? I wondered. Did he count as people? He had to, after everything. He certainly wasn't furniture.
At the end of my shift, I had succeeded in hugging almost everyone I wanted to-- my brothers were not particularly in the mood to get flour on their clothes and evaded me with great skill once they saw what was going on. I'd already hugged Charlie, so I kept puttering around the kitchen when he showed back up until he came over to hand me a slightly lemon-stained envelope. I blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment before the shadows on it told me what it was and who it was from: Mrs. Bialosky, her friend, all of our SOFs, and a few of our other steady customers I had always assumed were as mundane as they come had left me a sizeable tip. There were no notes within. I gave Charlie a bewildered look.
"Seems our regulars took up a collection," he told me, which was as much as I already knew. But why?
My voice actually cracked when I repeated the question out loud, and to my horror I'd started leaking tears.
Charlie had the nicest smile. He was wearing it now, gentle and careful like he was holding a baby bird. "Guess it's baker appreciation day."
I took him up on the second hug I could see in his face and got snot all over his plaid flannel shoulder, but afterward I felt steadier than I had since... since things. "It's Lemon Thing, isn't it? It's just that good."
"That's probably it." Charlie looked solemn.
I snuffled, smiled back, and left the kitchen to go wash my face.
I meant to repair my wards that night and go see my landlady after I got home, but I ended up staying the night at Mel's when he smiled at me just right and I needed to take his pants off right then. He was neither gentle nor careful with me this time, and it was just what I wanted; I was rough with him from the start, demanding and greedy and alive. We lay panting afterward, replete with the feeling of definitely not being dead. He didn't say a thing about my new scar necklace, although he had to have noticed. The way he looked at me just said that he was grateful to have me there, grateful in a solid way as deep and steady as the roots of a mountain.
I was starting to feel like I'd really won something, not just survived it.
When I got home the next night, I'd forgotten I still had broken balcony wards; I suppose I just wanted life to be back to normal so badly that my mind conveniently lost track of the things that weren't for awhile. My landlady had left me a wicker basket of flowers on my doorstep. There was no note, but there didn't need to be. A paper charm wrapped the basket's arched handle; enough to repair the scorched section of balcony. I took it inside and immediately stepped into the warm humidity of someone having just had a bath.
I reached for a knife I didn't have anymore before registering that the intruder was just Con, sitting on the couch in plain view. Flabbergasted, I stared at him. He didn't look injured or anything. "What are you doing here? Are you okay?" I crossed quickly to check him out up close.
He smelled like my conditioner.
"You requested silky," my vampire said solemnly.
"So... what, you came all this way to provide silky?" My mouth hung open a little in sheer surreal disbelief.
I thought that Con's face held cautious amusement. "Yes."
There was still a vampire in the room, but it was unmistakably my vampire. "Well. Okay," I told him. "Knock first next time. I like living alone."
Con inclined his head in apology, and I felt sort of like a jerk but not enough to take it back, because boundaries are important even when you like someone. Even when they're not a vampire.
"Tea?" I offered, because I hadn't had the time to get more orange juice-- which I was pretty sure he'd actually liked when he had it here-- but he'd joined me for the tea at his place, too.
I might have imagined the relief in the shadows on his face, but I didn't think so. "Yes. Please," Con added like a nice undead gentleman.
So we scored another groove into the pattern and drank together, things that a human and vampire could share.
He didn't stay long, and we didn't talk much. It was oddly soothing to have him there, though, and once he'd gone the peace remained. I hadn't noticed the itch until it stopped itching-- I'd wanted to see him, just to... just to see him, apparently.
The more I thought about that, the more I wasn't sure I liked it. Was it a normal reaction to what we'd been through, sort of like a security blanket than happened to be a vampire, or was it a vampire connection thing we'd accidentally forged between us? Was I going to need to see him for tea every other day from now on, not to feel a little antsy?
I decided to put that to the test. I had already told him not to come over without asking, and I didn't ask.
I lasted a week, but I was definitely getting cranky at the end of it, and when I called he came almost immediately. He looked as relieved as I was. "Okay, what the hell happened?" I demanded, narrowing my eyes. "I missed you." It came out more like an accusation than a compliment as I sat him down at the kitchen table and poured us both orange juice.
"I missed your company as well," he admitted eventually, very quietly, and that was weird. He didn't look entirely happy about it either, though, which made me happier. At least I wasn't alone in having a weird bond thing.
"Is this because we...?" I waved a hand as it trailed off.
"Perhaps?" Con allowed. "Fighting together as we did against a common enemy may have drawn us closer."
That wasn't actually what I'd meant. I'd been thinking about the time we were both naked and seconds away from doing some very human things we were definitely both into before he freaked out, but he had a point there.
"Oh," I said. "Not the kissing?"
Vampires don't blush, but I got the feeling he might have if he could've. "I do not think so, no."
I had to ask. "So... what would that have done, then? That you didn't want to happen. Because you were pretty clear about wanting the rest of it."
As badly phrased as it was, he still knew what I meant and didn't pretend otherwise. The shadows on his face told me he was even sort of relieved to have to talk about the elephant in the room. "It could have bound you to me as a servant."
Snorting laughter was really not the reaction he was expecting, I could tell. "That good, huh?"
His not-blush face did it harder. "Sunshine. This is not a joking matter."
"It kind of is," I told him, still snickering. "It beats the alternative."
He just sighed, which was probably for the best since his real laughter is not funny at all. "Sunshine..."
"Look. If we're going to be friends for a hundred years we should probably be able to talk about these exceptions to the 'you have no power over me' rule." Which was true, but then I couldn't resist adding "Especially if you are that good."
Con gave an interesting little growl that went straight to the pit of my prey-animal stomach and warmed good places between my legs at the same time; it was a vampire sound, neither safe or earthly, and yet I knew Con would never hurt me. Never.
"Yes," he said softly, with a tiny smile. "I am."
My turn to blush, though I was delighted and my own smile was a lot bigger. He was teasing me. It was practically human at the very same time it was not, because he was only breathing when he needed air to talk; for me, he didn't pretend unless I asked him to. It was... it was just Con.
My Con.
"Are you sure I'm the one who'd be your servant? I'm not so bad myself." I grinned at him.
He considered me. "You are a Blaise. Perhaps I would be caught in your charms." It was not entirely a joke.
It was starting to feel a little real in my kitchen, but I didn't want to stop. I reached out to refill his orange juice as he reached for his glass. Our fingers brushed. We both definitely noticed. "Just kissing seemed to be safe," I pointed out softly.
"Yes." His voice wasn't any louder.
"And I can look you in the eyes. And you said you can't vampire me. I'm too much a creature of sunlight."
He nodded, his gaze on mine. His pupils were as wide in desire as a man's. "Yes..."
"Yes?" I wanted to hear it. My fingers stroked his again, deliberately, and he shivered. I made him shiver.
"Yes," he breathed against my mouth, suddenly there in the blink of an eye, and I gasped. He took feather-light advantage of it to brush dry, smooth lips along mine as they parted, the barest flicker of his tongue tracing the wet line between inside and out.
I buried my hands in his silky hair and showed him what a Blaise could do too.