destinystrings | [closed] karma has no price

"Oh, really? Did you meet him here or in your world?"

"Ah...neither, actually." The small, gentle, smile that he reserved for his missing father-figure snuck its way onto his face as he turned his attention to his cup instead of Ben.

"I was in a different city before this one, one that also pulled people from their homes, he was there. Sadly, he went home shortly before I arrived here."

"So there are other places like this? Interesting." He takes a note of Johnny's smile, making a gentle grin of his own. "I don't know what to ask about: the city or the man. It's not every day we meet people who change our personal habits."

His smile grew a bit and he laughed. It ran through his mind that, before, he probably would have avoided saying anything. "I can tell you a bit of both. The place was called Vatheon, it was a city under the sea. It was probably calmer than this place...but not by much."

That smile returned and he paused a moment as blue eyes flashed through his mind. "The man was named Jacob. He was kind and gentle; he supported me when I least deserved it." The memory of Jacob's pained face as Johnny bit into his arm cut off anything else he might have said.

Ben's face of darkens. He takes a sip of his coffee, breaking eye contact. "Jacob? I knew a man named Jacob. He only supported the people he thought were worthy of his attention."

Johnny blinks, a little taken aback by the change in demeanor. He wasn't stupid, he could tell there was some bad blood under this. "Oh? I'm sorry to hear that, he doesn't sound like a very nice person at all. The Jacob I knew always had time for everyone, no matter what he was doing."

The only time he had ever hurt Johnny was when he'd been possessed by the island and called the vampire a monster, but he hardly blamed him for that. "He was the closest thing I've had for a father in centuries...Ah, sadly, he went back to the island he lived on. It was probably for the best, he always seemed to miss it."

"Your Jacob lived on an island?" Suddenly, his curiosity was piqued. He looked Johnny back in the eyes again. "That's funny. So did mine. I live on the same island he did, in fact."

"Huh..." Well, obviously it wasn't the same person, his Jacob would never act that way. "Well, there's plenty of worlds and islands and men named Jacob out there, it shouldn't be too surprising there's some form of overlap."

He took a drink from his cup, memories running through the city under the ocean and the things he knew about the man who'd become so important to him. "Ah...I remember, one Christmas, he gave me a very pretty scarab stone. I suppose it's still in my apartment there, I didn't have it on me when I arrived here. Oh, and another time, he was feeling homesick, so I got some help from a friend and we made him a replica of a statute he was apparently fond of. I wouldn't say it was the most appealing statue I've seen, but his tastes were odd."

"What kind of statue?"

There's a sick feeling growing in Ben's stomach. There's no way this could be the same Jacob, but in the unlikely event that it is...

He remembers the last time he had to deal with someone to who Jacob was like a father.

"Hmm? Oh, it was weird...some sort of Egyptian themed thing. I think he called it...'Taweret' or something. It only had four toes...ah, I wouldn't know much about it, I'm not overly familiar with Egyptian mythology."

All he knew was anything Jacob had told him. Maybe he should look into it sometime. "...Why do you ask?"

"Because my Jacob, the one who was on the island, lived in the remnants of a statue. All that remained was a foot. A foot with four toes. It was probably Egyptian. A lot of things on the island are. There's hieroglyphs everywhere.

"That Jacob...is dead."

He froze...every bit of him was still as his mind processed that. Or tried to.

He'd...just said there were plenty of people with the name Jacob and plenty of islands, right? This could all just be a giant coincidence...right?

Yeah...but how many of them lived in four-toed statues and had a fondness for Egyptian things?

No...he had to be sure. "My Jacob was blond and a calm, soothing voice...his eyes were a blue as bright as the sky." He was going to leave it there, let Ben prove this wasn't the same man, but his curiosity got the better of him. "How did that Jacob die?"

Ben might as well have been sitting alone. All the noises around him drown out, leaving him in a gut-wrenching silence. He feels his mouth dry up, his heart beat racing--telling himself to calm down wouldn't do any good, would it? You get used to danger when you live in it so long. Certain situations just trigger that feeling. Doesn't help when you've been in this exact situation before. This time, he doesn't have a gun pointed at him, and he isn't making Ben dig is own grave, but he wonders. What's going to happen when he tells him the truth?

Because he has to tell him the truth. He's not the man he used to be. All those sneaky lies about every aspect of his life--those days are gone.

But he sure as hell wishes he were still that man right now.

He looks down to his cup of coffee, swallowing what saliva he can muster to wet his mouth. He feels he could drink an ocean of water and still feel parched, unable to speak. But he has to speak.

And so he does:

"I killed him."

He didn't deny it...he didn't disagree with anything Johnny had described and while that could be seen as plausible deniability, it was stone cold proof to the vampire.

It was the same Jacob.

His Jacob: the man who had turned his perspective around, the man who had completely changed Johnny's life, the man who Johnny saw as his angel, his moral compass, the man he loved so completely...he was dead. He had slipped through the vampire's fingers and, despite every fiber of his being wishing for the man's safety, he had died.

This man had killed him.

His hand clenched tightly and black-painted nails bit into the skin of his palm. He had to stay calm...Jacob wouldn't want him to rip this man's head from his shoulders like every part of him wanted, right?

He wouldn't know now, would he? Because Jacob wasn't there anymore. He was gone.

In a flash, he was on his feet and his hands were curled into the fabric of Ben's shirt, gold eyes flashing and fangs purposefully bared for the human to see. "Why?"

It's a long story, and he would like nothing more than for this man, this fanged man to let him go, sit down, and let him tell it; but he knows he's not going to get that courtesy. He squeezes his eyes shut, licks his lips, and tries not to give in to the fear. That's what the old Ben would do, right? Maybe panic for a second or two, but recompose himself. Think of a way out of this. He'd find a way to get the upper hand. He opens his eyes, trying to meet Johnny's gaze as steadily as he can.

"There was a man," he begins, his voice shaky, "a man on the island who wanted Jacob dead. He used me to get to Jacob. He used the man I was, the resentful man--he used him. That doesn't excuse what I did, but you have to understand this is far more complicated than you think it is."

Why? Why did people want Jacob dead? First there was the man who had killed Jacob seemingly on a whim in the bubble, and now there was Ben and the mysterious puppeteer he had mentioned.

A sensible part of Johnny-the part of Johnny that had adapted a voice eerily similar to the one belonging to the man he was now mourning-told him he ought to listen, that it might not be this man's fault entirely, that killing him went against everything he was trying to be these days; but he shut it down and let his anger and pain overwhelm it.

It took almost no effort to throw the man into the nearest table, barely even aware of the ruckus they were causing. In Johnny's opinion, Ben needed to know just how much this new information hurt.

"Are you aware of the life you snuffed out? How weak-willed were you that you let someone else pull your strings? Jacob was irreplaceable! I loved him and you took that away-!"

If he were a hundred percent honest with himself, he would know he wasn't angry at Ben, not fully. Yes, he was mad at what Ben had done, but more than that he was mad that he hadn't been there to protect Jacob. He'd failed at protecting someone who meant more than just about everything to Johnny-no matter how ridiculous it might be to expect that he could have done anything to change it.

Reason didn't matter in the face of grief.

He lunged, perfectly intent on sinking those elongating fangs into Ben's skin. He didn't even want to taste his blood, he just wanted to harm.

Edited 2013-03-27 04:25 (UTC)

There was a faint scent of alcohol, and then Otoha reached out and grabbed Johnny by the collar. He wasn't sure what's going on, not completely, but he knows that he couldn't let Johnny attack people. Not only was it just bad press in general, but he had no idea how angry Johnny was at the moment... and better to let someone who couldn't feel pain get attacked than someone who probably could.

The sudden tug cut off his momentum and sent him back against Otoha.

He pushed against this person who suddenly had a hold of him, attempting to tear his way back to Ben. "Stay out of this, it has nothing to do with you! You don't know what he did-!" If he could just get his hands on him!

"How can you not understand what you did? You didn't know him at all!" Despite his anger, despite the violence he still wanted to cause, his voice broke on his last sentence and tears collected in the corners of his eyes before trailing down his cheeks. The only other time he'd wanted to kill someone so badly was when he'd discovered Jacob's lifeless body in that alleyway all those months ago.

"I know what I did," Ben says, his voice assuming a certain arresting command, authority that hadn't been there before. "I know why I did it. And I regret it, I do. But you...you don't understand. You don't understand what drove me to do it."

He stumbles to his feet, looking at Johnny directly. His eyes aren't entirely unsympathetic, but there's a great deal of anger there. "Jacob wasn't the man he made you believe he was. He was a distant man. A man who didn't care what people did for him, as long as it got done. How long did you know him? A few weeks? A few months? I spent almost my entire life serving Jacob. I sacrificed everything for Jacob. And he didn't even--"

Ben lets out a humorless laugh. "You know? I had this exact same conversation years ago. Someone else who saw Jacob as a father. She was going to kill me for what I did, just like you. And I told her exactly what I told you. Obviously she didn't kill me. She took pity on me. Which is more than I can say for Jacob. I suppose the lesson here is that Jacob is very...selective about who he chooses to associate with. Who he chooses to love." The hardness in his voice softens, as does the anger in his eyes. In their place is an almost childlike, lost sadness. "What did you do for him that made him love you so much?"

Otoha wraps his arms around Johnny, doing his best to pin the vampire's arms against his body. He doesn't care if he gets hurt. Right now what matters is getting Johnny away from this.

When he looks back at Ben, his gaze is a bit sympathetic - or as sympathetic as Otoha usually gets. Giving everything to serve a person, who only takes and takes and doesn't care about you.. yeah, that sounded familiar. He didn't have a choice, really... but he doesn't know this guy's story. Maybe he didn't, either.

The scent finally registered just as he realized exactly whose frame he was pressed against, and the two things combined made him calm down a bit. He didn't want to hurt Otoha, he wanted to hurt Ben.

Except he could feel the fight draining out of him. As frustrating as it was, Ben's words were not falling on deaf ears. He'd known Jacob a little over a year, a blink of an eye in his lifetime, but he refused to believe that that meant he knew nothing of the man; it wasn't the amount of time, it was how you spent it.

He stopped pulling against Otoha's grip and just let it stay there, he still couldn't guarantee he wouldn't do anything if it wasn't there to ground him. When he spoke, his voice was still raw with anger and pain, but there was a note of sympathy and uncertainty there as well. "I don't know why things were different for you, he never acted that way towards anyone; whenever I had a problem I knew I could find comfort at his cabin."

Maybe it was the island? That was the only difference he could think of, if it wasn't, then there was something else at play here that neither of them would be able to come up with.

"I'm sorry that was your experience, I can't imagine why things happened for you the way that they did, I just wish I could show you what I see." One of his hands came up to grasp at Otoha's wrist, half to garnish some form of comfort and half to tell his partner they needed to go.

"I would watch myself if I were you, Ben. Places like this...they have a habit of bringing back those who should be dead. I doubt Jacob would take any action against you...but I know what it's like to face the ghosts of Christmas past."

The anger and a bit of that gleam that could remind the world that vampires were predators returned to his eyes. "And know that, if he does ever show up here, I don't care if he's the new sign of the apocalypse, if you lay a finger on him I will break every one of your limbs off like they're made of toothpicks."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

And he means it.

Otoha sighed, shaking his head. He didn't say anything to Ben, just tilted his head slightly and grabbed Johnny by the arm. He'd get the full story later. Right now he needed to get Johnny away from here. ... And probably feed him, too. It'd been a while.

"Come on." He started walking, doing what he could to tug Johnny along.

[closed] karma has no price

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