Alternate Path: Penalties Revisted

[Existentially Odd]

"If we\'d continued seeing each other, yes," Kerr assured her quickly, watching her face worriedly.  "But as I said, we\'d only known each other a short while.  Ben\'s main goal in life is to end it - he wants to be sired.  He asked me but... well, he knows I\'m not interested, so I don\'t know how much longer we\'d have remained friends.  In the meantime, we\'ve been...

kissing

uh... getting to know one another.  He likes hearing about my past and I like having someone who\'s interested in me but I... I really couldn\'t tell you where he and I stand," the vampire admitted, swallowing nervously.

Oh, this desperate yearning and feeling of being trapped between Ben and Mandy, stretched both ways but with no rational manner by which to choose a preference, was hideous.  He\'d known he might eventually have to choose, but he\'d put that decision off and off, hadn\'t he?  Now she wanted him to make the call with Ben locked up, away from him, and her mercilessly wounded because of him?  It just wasn\'t possible.

"All I know is, you\'re here and he\'s not and I\'m responsible for wounding you both and... and... I\'m so sorry," he professed, choking on his words as the emotion in him welled, his gaze beseeching her forgiveness.  "If I could have it back to do again, I would do it all differently, but... I... " he trailed off, shaking his head and looking lost.

[Mandy]

“I`m interested in you!” Mandy protested weakly at Kerr`s words, twisting enough at the hip to send electrifying jolts of pain down her back, “I gave myself to you! Stayed with you despite learning what you are. Is what he offers you in blood so much more important than that?”

She didn`t know why she was becoming so defensive. It wasn`t as though Kerr had told her that there was more to he and Ben`s relationship beyond that of a ‘master’ and his ‘pet’. Nevertheless, she couldn`t help but feel threatened by the other mortals presence… his very name. And the fact that he`d been kept a secret for any amount of time only served to further increase this disheartening impulse.

Mandy hesitated as she considered the remainder of Kerr`s miserable account, finding the latter to be particularly unsettling.

“I`m here… and he`s not.” She whispered, recalling the statement with mixed emotion, “And if it were the other way around? If I were still locked up, awaiting some unforeseen fate, and he was here with you now – then what? Would you be out fighting for me? Trying to free me from that horrible place or…” Or what? “… or just sitting here with him, contemplating your next feed?”

[Existentially Odd]

"I know you are!" Kerr shot back, when told she was interested in him, his face displaying his agony at having stated this fact wrongly.  "I didn\'t mean it like that, I just meant that... well, uh... he\'s not like Sawyl!  He knew about me being a vampire from the start and he cared about my history.  With you, it was different," he pleaded, liftng one knee up onto the bed as he turned to face her properly (still grasping the drink lid).

"I\'m not sure what you\'re asking of me," he told her truthfully, hoping that the slight whine he felt was in his voice wasn\'t audible by her.  "Are you saying that I should be out there, trying to rescue Ben off the Oligarch who\'s got him imprisoned and not being here with you when you tell me to imagine teh situations reversed and apply it now?  Because I\'m not actually sitting here concerned with my next feed, while I\'m with you.  I\'m just... here with you and I can\'t do anything about him, as bad as I feel about that.  What... do you... I mean, I\'ll try but I can\'t guarantee I\'ll find him," Kerr offered uncertainly.

He honestly didn\'t understand whether Mandy wanted him to be more active in his pursuit of Ben - in case their situations were reversed - or more attentive to her - because they weren\'t.  She was in pain, though, so he couldn\'t blame her for raising confusing arguments, he just wished she\'d state herself plainly.

[Mandy]

“How can you misinterpret me so badly?” She cried, tears finally steaming down her cheeks - falling to her naked breasts below, “I`m not trying to send you away on some rescue mission! What I meant was, after all that we`ve shared… if it were me there instead of Ben, would you come? Or would you stay? Would it make any difference if it were me or him? I imagine you stay with me now because you do care… but I need to know how much. If you would remain by his side rather than seek me out… then I have to assume that you hold us in exactly the same regard. Do you understand?”

She felt as though she were talking in circles. She simply couldn`t put her meaning into words. It was frustrating. Could he not see? Mandy had been trying to make a point; submit a very hypothetical ‘for instance’ to the floor, and Kerr had somehow managed to twist it all around, giving it a totally different spin. Now, if she told him not to peruse Ben, the female would likely appear heartless. Especially after insinuating that she would want to be rescued herself.

“Don`t you feel anything special for me, Kerr? Anything at all? Do I not mean more to you than Ben?" She wiped fiercely at her eyes, despising her tears and all the weakness the tiny droplets openly displayed. Why was she crying!? He had wronged her! It didn`t make any sense, and yet in some strange way... it did. Gradually, Mandy was beginning to realize the real motive behind her jealousy… for the burning desire to know where she and Kerr stood. It was becoming all so clear to her now. How could she have missed it before?

She was in love with him. Funny, how it took the most horrific of situations to make people see what was sitting there, right before their very eyes.

Then again, it could just be the pain medication.

[Existentially Odd]

Here, at last, was an answer he could give, and it surprised even him when it burst from between his lips.  "Yes," he admitted rapidly, "of course you mean more to me than he does!  He\'s a close friend, you\'re my... lover," he fumbled over the word, having not used it in so long.  How strange, to be back in that position after centuries and centuries of abstinence - but he couldn\'t deny the way he wanted her, the rapturous yearning he\'d found when burying himself inside her body a few nights before.

Ben might hold his imagination and curiosity - not to mention be something pretty that he covetted as his own fan, stroking his ego as well as feeding his blood hunger - but Mandy had claimed his heart.  Whether it had been the moment he\'d slid inside her or watching her body undulate beneath the strain of the lashes for him that had done it, he couldn\'t be sure, but he knew it to be true.  "I love you," he told her earnestly, leaning in close so that he could look directly into her eyes, wishing he had the balls to kiss her but afraid she\'d push him away.

"In the sense of this trial and the suffering you\'ve both endured for me, I must hold you both in the same regard," he told her plaintively, reaching up to press the fingertips of his left hand to her cheek, the contact minimal but obvious due to the vast difference between his undead temperature and her infection-ravaged one.  "But I can\'t find Ben yet.  I\'ll keep looking, though, to see if I can do anything about his imprisonment.  On a personal and intimacy level, however... you and he are vastly different."

He was in the mood to admit that he and Ben had shared a kiss but it hadn\'t been a passionate declaration or a lustful yearning, it had been a resolution and an answer to a curiosity he\'d held.  Nothing like what he felt when Mandy\'s lips were pressed to his own.  No, because of that fact, he was better off keeping that information to himself; she\'d only become more upset and increase her pain level for no real reason.  He really did love her, so the protection impulse was strong.

[Mandy]

In a million years, Mandy could have never guessed that Kerr would be the one to admit to love, for she was clearly the more emotional of the two…

But there it was.

 It startled her – left her breathless, unable to so much as think let alone speak. He declared the very thing she`d only just come to realized was true of herself. She loved him… and he loved her. Cared for her more than Ben. Following such a profound admission, his resolve to continue searching for his wayward pet, seemed a more than reasonable plan. Mandy had something solid to cling to now. An assurance. Call her selfish, but it made all the difference in the world.

“Kerr…” She leaned forward (the anger and frustration brought on by the trial seeming eons away) seeking the slightly cool kiss of his lips - left hand reaching up to cradle his strong jaw in her palm. To echo the vampire`s beautiful confession now, might appear nothing more than lip service, given how upset she`d been just moments before. But that didn`t mean Mandy could project the depth of this love in a wordless display. She pressed ripples of relief and affection and rapture against his mind, all of it experienced in the wake of his wonderful words. The trial, her punishment, the pain and awkwardness to follow – all of it was suddenly justified. It had been worth it...

As long as she could be there in his arms.

Parting her lips, she gave Kerr the option of perusing a deeper kiss or speaking (though she felt compelled to say a few things of her own first).

“I`m sorry for questioning you. I shouldn`t have put you on the spot…” She whispered, nuzzling her nose against his (wincing with unrelenting spikes of pain). “Will you try to find him again tonight?” The two mortals may have their differences, but Mandy never wished the boy harm. So if Kerr could locate him and spare him the wrath of some undue fate, then perhaps a small injustice might be averted?

Maybe Mandy and Ben would even come to think of one another as friends?

[Existentially Odd]

"No, not tonight," he whispered, his eyes falling closed as he nuzzled against her lips, wanting to kiss but aware of her pain, needing to talk so not pressing forward.  "I know whose house he\'s at now, it\'ll just be a matter of following one night.  I\'ll find him eventually but... I still don\'t know what to do next.  All I can focus on now is getting you well," he whispered, his fingers sliding off her cheek like a spider\'s web hanging broken and cool in a breeze, tracing her ear gently.

"I so want you to be better," he added urgently, hating the fact that he wasn\'t allowed to help her wounds heal in any way, lest they be punished more.  But what if... it wasn\'t him that did the mending?  And she never left the house?  How would anyone know? His thoughts began to turn more rapidly.