To Everything, There Is A Season (II)

[Existentially Odd]

Continued from \'To Everything, There Is A Season I\'

Kerr gestured for Ben to preced him into the apartment, then followed him in and closed the door, flipping a switch that lit up two black floor lamps placed on either side of the sunken lounge before them.  Nothing had been spoken in the elevator on the way up and though Kerr had pressed tentatively towards his fledgling in an effort to carry stray thoughts or emotions, he still felt very blocked.  Ben had obviously been practising over the past few weeks.

"Please.  Sit," the Irish vampire instructed stiltedly, glancing around almost nervously.  It was the first time anyone had entered his new home - and to begin with such an important someone was nervewracking to say the least.  There was nothing but an expansive view of the city\'s lights through the four plate glass windows beyond the lounge; Kerr paused in the entryway to put his keys on a hook and hang up his coat in the closet to the right - leaving him wearing blue jeans, brown leather boots and an emerald green cashmere sweater with a rounded neck.

He followed Ben to the couches, planning to sit on the one opposite as he approached, because he assumed Ben wouldn\'t sit beside him and he figured that the couch with its back to the door would offer the nicest view for his visitor.  It would be something easy to look at when they were finally face to face, anyway.  Kerr was aware, as he walked, of the kitchen and dining area to his left - the bedrooms etc. were down a discreet hall between the two areas, these three rooms taking up at least half of the suite\'s entire floor space - but he didn\'t look at those.  He made a beeline for his intended seat instead, ending up getting to the low-slung leather beast before Ben had finished taking it all in and started walking.

He cleared his throat as he sat on the edge of the seat, hands covering his knees as he watched his fledgling intently.  "How have you been?" he asked, his voice feeling exceptionally loud in the sound-proofed room.

[Trillian]

Upon entering the apartment, as Kerr hung up his coat, Ben stared out one of the expansive windows at the city skyline.

"Impressive," he said, but he didn\'t look, sound or feel impressed.  It was an impressive sight, though the fledgling wasn\'t moved by it.  He felt somehow like he was missing out on something crucial, to not appreciate the view he was seeing.  It was like travelling across the country to look at something mindnumbing like the Grand Canyon, or the Statue of Liberty, and then not being moved by it.

He wasn\'t wearing a coat, so had nothing to hang up on the hook by Kerr\'s coat.  Wearing a coat gave him away, he felt.  On a chilly night like this one, wearing only a thin light blue button-up shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans with tan sneakers meant that anybody brushing past him wouldn\'t be surprised if he felt cold.

Holding onto his elbows now, watching Kerr seat himself, he did as the other vampire predicted.  He approached and then sat on the sofa opposite, glancing out the windows once more before meeting Kerr\'s worried gaze.  He slouched as much as he could into the black leather of the chair, and surprisingly sank further than expected.  With knees together and feet slightly apart, his body language finally started to match his mind - closed off.

How had he been?  There was a pause as he thought over the most correct answer.  \'Surviving\' wasn\'t good enough, he\'d been doing better than that, he thought.  \'Coping\' was just negative.  \'Getting over it\' was accurate, but too harsh.  Then he thought of something appropriate.

"Better than expected," he said, closing his mouth before he added on the last word:  \'considering\'.  There was no need to be hostile.  It hadn\'t been Kerr\'s fault Sawyl attacked him.  The information passed to Ben was something that he shouldn\'t\'ve been shown.  It was private, it was likely out of context, but regardless of context, it was repulsive, and so Ben couldn\'t act normally around Kerr.  Or at all, it seemed.  Perhaps this was normal now.  He hoped not.  He was looking forward to being happier.  He failed to ask how Kerr was.  He could tell, and he knew regardless of what he said, Kerr would know that Ben was far from fine as well.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr frowned lightly, gnawing on his tongue stud while he attempted to recover from Ben\'s unannounced animosity.  Part of him became resentful and stirred within, because the fledgling didn\'t understand anything, yet he wasn\'t asking for answers, or making it easy for Kerr to offer.  He was just... blank.

"Right.  Well, it seems that you\'re not really interested in an explanation, but I think it might be important to tell you what happened three or so weeks ago and... you can make up your mind from there," he said, having cleared his throat and decided he might as well just spill the facts, fuck playing these stupid games.  He was hurt, Ben was hurt; the only issue was over why, so the sooner he got the details out there, the sooner they could reach an informed understanding (he shied away from considering this a decision, per se... he really didn\'t want anything dramatic to happen, beyond seeing Ben a lot more now).

"Sawyl came and saw you.  I don\'t know details, but he said he showed you what we were to each other.  We fought about it and when I told him that all those things I\'d done with him were only to get at his mind while he was weak because I wanted to know if he\'d done anything to you, he became irrational.  He snapped my mind and was going to kill me, when his mothers stopped him.  When I was able to leave, I took everything I could carry and I went.  Found this place and had it fixed up.  Moved in about a week later.  I\'ve been back to see the twins once, just to formalise what they wanted done with money and stuff; they want me to keep handling things and it\'s easy enough, so I agreed.  I won\'t be contacting them again for a long, long time.  Your turn."

Kerr\'s speech had been delivered without his trademark emotion - just the facts, stated calmly and smoothly, without any dramatic pauses for effect.  Only when he indicated Ben should return in kind and offer up his facts was there any emotion evident and it was a trace of anger, for he didn\'t want to be left hanging without reciprocation in this case.  He needed to know what had gone on from Ben\'s side, otherwise he would never be able to fix this broken relationship.

[Trillian]

When accused of not being interested in an explanation, Ben blinked and flinched as though slapped, and if he\'d managed to take his drink tonight before Kerr had found him, the other would\'ve seen pink spots on his cheeks.  For lack of blood, however, Ben remained pale and frowning.

To be completely honest, Ben couldn\'t care less how Kerr and Sawyl had broken it off, but that seemed to be Kerr\'s focus.  Other than the first sentence about what he knew of Kerr and Sawyl (which was the real reason for the animosity Kerr had spied), all of it involved events afterward.  Not a comment was made on how he\'d felt other than the fact he\'d obviously been angry.  This in turn made Ben angry, but he squashed it as firmly as he could.  It gnawed at him, however, and the frown remained on his face.

"My turn?" he asked quietly, wondering what Kerr wanted from him.  He spoke calmly, though he didn\'t feel it.  "If you want me to reciprocate in kind, then I guess I should tell you that after Sawyl left, myself and Arles remained together at his place.  I\'ve been practising my blocking, because my mental shield was a mere degree of nothing to your beloved."

Ben lowered his gaze after the last word came out.  He hadn\'t meant to say anything that would hurt Kerr.  He hadn\'t meant to be cruel.  He didn\'t want to see that betrayal on Kerr\'s face and so dropped his eyes as soon as he\'d said it, not wanting the proof of his hurtful words.

"Sorry," he whispered, though he said it so quietly he wasn\'t sure if Kerr would hear it, even with his enhanced hearing.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr laughed snidely.  "He\'s not my beloved and hasn\'t been for a long while, now.  Don\'t worry; I\'ve never been able to hold off against him anyway, so I doubt you\'d ever do much with your blocking, should he ever decide to revisit you.  Try and run if he comes bearing an axe, alright?"

Alright, it wasn\'t the most mature thing to do, to respond in kind, but there was a lot of anger simmering beneath both of their words and he couldn\'t figure out why.  His anger was directed at Sawyl, not Ben... wasn\'t it?  Still, he was snapping back like he was mad at Ben for... for something he couldn\'t pinpoint just yet.

[Trillian]

Ben didn\'t have the hatred or the anger in him to continue the argument.  His apology, lost on Kerr, was all he\'d had in him and under Kerr\'s snappy words he remained with his gaze fixed on the floor, now unable to meet the other\'s eyes, wilting under his anger - something Ben knew he\'d caused with a word he hadn\'t even meant to say.

It was better just to stay quiet, he thought, better to just let it all wash over him and hopefully Kerr wouldn\'t continue on his own.  Maybe his silence would feed Kerr\'s irritation, but Ben would prefer to take that chance than to say the wrong thing again.

He didn\'t want to fight, he didn\'t want to hate Kerr and he didn\'t even know why he\'d come here in the first place.  No, that wasn\'t true, he\'d wanted Kerr to tell him it was all lies (though he knew better), that Sawyl had invented everything (though he knew better) and that nothing of the sort had happened.  Who was he to Kerr, to be hurt by this anyway?  They weren\'t lovers.

The mental block in his head was hard to hold under attack from his own mental anguish, and he could feel it quivering, so he tried his best to focus on retaining it, instead.

[Existentially Odd]

The silence caused Kerr to look away, a lump forming in his throat.  He gazed blindly around the room, fighting off tears and still not fucking understanding why.  The frustration built to a boiling point in him and he suddenly surged out of his seat, circled the coffee table and sat beside Ben, on his right, left leg tucked under himself so that he could get as close as possible.  Both his knees were pressed against the blonde\'s thigh.  He wrapped iron-like arms around Ben and shoved his face into the fledgling\'s nape, squeezing him with a strength borne of turbulent emotions, that would\'ve crushed the breath from a mortal.

"I\'m sorry.  I\'m so sorry he hurt you, I... never wanted that to happen, never wanted you to know," he choked out, the tears not falling but... threatening to do so.  Why the fuck did everything always have to hurt so much?

[Trillian]

He wanted to fight Kerr off

You had sex with him
A child!  A child!
Not a child, not at 400 years old

but didn\'t, instead he stiffened for half a second and then reached around to cling to Kerr as he had to Arles, not feeling like he was betraying anybody in doing so, wanting to receive what little comfort he could get.

But he looks like a child
And what if he didn\'t look like a child
What if he was in his 20s
Would it hurt?

He didn\'t want to pull away from Kerr, he wanted to stay here and be hugged by him forever, he wanted to forget all of it had happened, he wanted to feel safe and protected, and now Kerr was alone, and available to him.

Would it still hurt?

The repulsion wouldn\'t have been present, but the hurt would still be there, Ben was sure.  Poor Kerr, being pulled this way and that by people who he owed nothing to, in the name of their love for him.  And why had Ben attached himself to Kerr in the first place?  To use him, to use him for his vampirism, and he\'d got his way.  It wasn\'t like that now he knew, as he clawed fingertips into Kerr\'s back, holding on desperately, but what had it been like?  Certainly not the sunny picnic days that romance movies would like to believe, but then, Ben had always been attracted to darkness.  Was he attracted to tragedy as well?  Was he fucked up like Sawyl?

Or like Kerr?

"You had sex with him," Ben said finally, moving his hands around to Kerr\'s chest so that he could push against him while pulling away.  "You had sex with him recently, and I know I have no right to know, but I know, and I know I have no right to hate you for doing it, but I do."  His light eyes met dark ones, and they were determined now.  Hurt, and determined.  "And I know you have every right to defend yourself," he said, his voice wavering so he bit his lip and waited for the explanation that he felt he hadn\'t yet got.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr blinked at Ben, accepting the distance the fledgling put between them and dropping his hands, expression bewildered as the blonde\'s words sank in.  He felt as if his heart had just been punctured by a pin; he was fairly certain that was how he looked, too, because he couldn\'t get past the painful truth his love had just served him.

"You... hate me?" he whispered hollowly, blinking again at the direct and steelly gaze before him.  "F-for having sex with him... you hate me?"  He was aware he\'d been invited to expand on his justifications for this act, but he... really couldn\'t.  He couldn\'t think.  He was fairly certain he heard the very distinct sound of something breaking inside him and he wasn\'t able to hurdle that with any grace whatsoever at this very moment.  He didn\'t think he\'d be able to walk, let alone hurdle.

Hates me?

[Trillian]

Saying that he hated Kerr was too strong a thing to say, Ben saw this now, but part of it was true, because part of him did hate the other for it, for the weakness in him, for giving in to a demanding child in a way that was sickening to the core.  It wasn\'t only that Sawyl looked like a child, he was also childish.

"I hate that you did it," Ben conceded, not denying the first statement of hatred outright, but hoping his change of phrasing would lessen it and make Kerr understand that Ben didn\'t hate him as bluntly as he\'d said - it was a soft degree (but still there enough for Ben not to deny).  "I hate that you did it with him."

Ben had always been direct, but this kind of honesty was reaching new levels.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr frowned down at his lap in an effort to regather his equilibrium somewhat.  The qualification went some way towards making him feel better but it was marginal.  There was still passionate dislike of something he\'d done, something he\'d either fallen unwittingly into or consented to for a higher purpose - Ben being that higher purpose, though what a joke that seemed now - and disgust for him because he\'d been weak.  He had no way to explain the depths of the sorrow he\'d been in to get that weak, so he was momentarily stalled, trying to find something to say.  He couldn\'t look up again yet, he knew that.

"Given... ideal circumstances and the power of other choices, I might not have made those mistakes.  I\'m not proud of it but... there were... extenuating circumstances... every time," he said thickly, attempting to swallow down the lump in his throat.  His gaze was now fixed on Ben\'s leg, unwavering and unseeing; all his attention was focussed inward.  He wondered exactly what Ben had seen... and he wondered if it made a difference.  Would it even change anything if he said why he\'d done it?  Ben said he hated the act; that wouldn\'t be obliterated by making transparent the context around each of them.  It would probably make things worse.

[Trillian]

Ben stared at Kerr for a long time, thinking over what had been said.  It could\'ve been a throwaway phrase - something a politician might\'ve said to get himself out of trouble when caught in the middle of a scandal - but Kerr wasn\'t a politician.  Ben knew his heart, knew Kerr always meant well, but this was a big deal and Ben couldn\'t just get over it.  Not without time, he thought.

"You shouldn\'t be blamed because you were manipulated?" Ben asked quietly.  "Every time?"

[Existentially Odd]

"No, I... " Kerr shifted his frown up to meet Ben\'s expression at last, his thoughts becoming muddled as they tripped over one another in their effort to get out of his head and be heard. He ended up saying nothing for a few moments because of this - or perhaps that was just because he was looking at Ben again and his heart had decided it would clamour for some attention, cringeing painfully in his chest.

"It wasn\'t like that," he winced, shaking his head as if to clear it and restore some order to his thinking.  "I wasn\'t manipulated any of the times, actually.  Back at the beginning of our relationship there were some... attempts to cajole me that I avoided.  Then there was nothing more until after the trial and I... was left so alone that... he comforted me!" the adult cried in anguish, definitely sounding like he was justifying now.  "That\'s all it was!  Comfort that... got... twisted, I suppose."

Defeatedly, and with a stray wave of one hand, Kerr sagged back against the couch, shoulders slumped.  There wasn\'t a whole lot of comfort to be found coming from his fledgling, that was for sure and it made him angry - especially as he contemplated the last experience he\'d had with Sawyl.  "The only time I ever entered him was when I needed to know if he\'d had anything to do with you disappearing.  Declan told me you\'d left but it had been months and I was frantic to find you.  Sawyl seemed suspiciously happy, so I... did it to distract him, so he wouldn\'t feel me searching his memories.  Imagine my surprise when I found out I should\'ve fucked Tag instead!" Kerr spat bitterly, biting viciously on his tongue stud as he turned his head and looked at the twinkling city skyline in preference to the accusatory silvery gaze ahead of him.  He wanted to cry.

His emotions were on a roller coaster he had no control over, shitting him to tears.  One minute he was morbidly sorry, the next he was foully resentful and spitting from a  corner.  He felt backed in, perhaps that was why.  Perhaps it was the futility of it all.  There was no argument that would make this go away but he was furious that Ben was the root of all the acts, yet he saw fit to judge him in hatred for his deeds.  Fabulous.

[Trillian]

the only time I entered him
should\'ve fucked Tag instead

Ben shuddered at both comment, a chill racing along his lower back at such dreadfully potent words.  He didn\'t want to feel this way, he didn\'t want Kerr to feel this way, and yet here it was, a chasm between them, something that he would\'ve been happier without knowing about and yet it was so horrid that he would never have known had it not been for Sawyl.

Comforted him.  Sawyl had been a comfort.  Now Kerr and Sawyl were apart, after four hundred or so years of being together.  Ben couldn\'t even fathom it.

"You loved him," Ben said finally, admitting a truth that hadn\'t really sunk in until now.  "You loved him and he loved you and it didn\'t matter what others thought because you had each other.  But he\'s cruel and you\'re kind and eventually it had to end.  Nothing\'s forever." He said all this hollowly and with dull realisation.  "I can\'t comprehend your loss, Kerr," he started, and once again felt blubbery enough to bite his lip again (though with his front teeth, not with his fangs), "but it\'s like the fucking universe caves in every time we come together."

He covered his face with his hands.  An old Ben trait.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr turned back to look at Ben, still frowning as he listened.  He was at a loss for words, though every fibre in his being resounded with an irrefutable YES when his fledgling stated that every time they came together, the universe conspired against them.  The tears welled and he reached out blindly to cup the back of Ben\'s head with his left hand, leaning his forehead against the back of the blonde\'s hands.

"No.  Nothing\'s forever, especially when the love dies and there\'s... no tolerance," he managed, his voice slightly muffled as his face slid upward until his lips were pressed to knuckles.  "Or... someone else."  It did seem ill-fated, the two of them.  Why the fuck did they continue fighting?