New On The Scene

[Existentially Odd]

"Oh yes!" the vampire in question answered cheerfully, having taken up a stoney stance behind the pair of them, arms now folded across his chest.  He\'d been glaring hatefully at the place where the mortal was touching his twin but, with his overbright words, he\'d looked up at Chase instead, a sweet grin gracing his lips.  He expected that he\'d be looked at, after interrupting them, and he wanted to look just right when that happened.

"I\'ll be with you both every step of the way," he added brightly, his gaze now switching to take in his brother\'s profile, knowing that he would see the glittering quality of his expression, if he cared to look.  Matt was blocking him in every other way that he was able (not that he was very effective at overcoming their sire-fledgling bond).  It was killing him, seeing Will touching someone else when he rejected him - violently, in fact, if recent events were to be taken into consideration. He was supposed to love him, not treat him like this, with this much disrespect.

A whirring, spinning, flying thing had been released in Matt\'s breast, like a child\'s chair-o-plane toy swinging tiny little seats around his chest cavity, making him feel lost, off-centre and completely out of control.  Fair enough if Will rejected him - he didn\'t like it, but he accepted it until such time as he\'d be able to convince his twin to accept him completely, whether it took a week or a century - but not for this.  If he wasn\'t allowed to touch his other half then no-one else should be able to, either.

The helpless sensation of having something wildly swirling at his core, sending him off-kilter, was skewing his judgment but he was determined to fake it and just smile along so that the other two didn\'t know the depths of his despair... and smile he did.

[Trillian]

There was something in that tone that made Will look at his brother.  What he saw in that smile caused alarm so that he opened his mind to Will, hunting for how he was feeling - it was faint but as Will dug their bond revealed Will\'s true feelings.  The spinning turmoil made him physically flinch so that he closed it off again.  He felt nauseous about how Matt was feeling, guilt rising rapidly like bile in his throat.  Perhaps his brother could\'ve hidden it had Will not looked, but he\'d looked.  Finally.

Shhh, don\'t fret, we\'re just taking him home and we\'ll leave, we\'ll go home, everything will be alright, nothing will happen, I just want to make sure he\'s safe because I said he would be, you know my word is important to me, that\'s all I\'ll do, just take him home and go, and we\'ll be together, we\'ll be safe and together

It was projected furiously at Matt, Will\'s expression softening when he looked at his twin, no longer wishing to be hard and cold to him because of their petty argument.  Chase, however, was his responsibility for now, and even with his brother\'s emotions wheeling about he couldn\'t shirk it.  If Matt lost it completely, however, Chase was completely unimportant in comparison.

Thinking of the mortal now, he patted his hand and heard himself say; "So let\'s find ourselves a cab." Then he reached out and sought his brother\'s hand, so he could hold onto him and reassure himself that his words had indeed soothed his twin.

[pinkroses]

Normally Chase was a lot more able to pick up on people’s feelings and the real meaning behind their words, but tonight he was just getting swept up in what was happening and when he saw the beam on Matt’s face Chase couldn’t help but smile back. Maybe he had been mistaken about the tension previously, although the two brothers were a little closer than Chase was used to, but he was willing to go along with it after how nice Will had been to him.

“Okay then, let’s go,” Chase said, gently squeezing Will’s firm arm as he smiled at Matt before turning his eyes to the first vampire he had run into, waiting for him to lead the way since Chase had no idea how to get out of this place since he had been unconscious on the way here. "My flat isn\'t far from here really, just about ten minutes in a cab I think," he added as they began moving.

[Existentially Odd]

Matthew\'s forced cheer faltered at the insistent reassurances he received from his twin, and the smile soon followed the same extinct route.  Warily, almost hopefully, he watched Will, trying to decide how he felt about that offer.  It was quite simple, really; he felt much, much better.

Tentatively, he held out his hand and slid it into his fledgling\'s, holding it with a mix of uncertainty and trepidation.  It seemed almost too good to be true, after all the horrible visions Will had been forcing him to contemplate, and he wasn\'t certain he could trust it... but the whirring had stopped.  He felt more sure-footed and hopeful as he stepped closer to his twin.

Looking into green eyes so achingly familiar he could\'ve represented them in watercolours with his eyes blindfolded - using his bad hand - he licked his lips and nodded.

Alright.  We\'ll take him home... then go home.

[Trillian]

The trio moved upstairs like that, with Chase and Will with linked arms and Will holding Matt\'s hand firmly, casting glances his way to make sure that his twin was really okay.

Once they moved out of the nightclub and into the fresh air, Will felt better, though the conflict in him between Chase and Matt was still palpable.  The mortal was someone - he discovered now - who he wanted to explore with.  Matt\'s constant urgings for him to have some fun had finally grown teeth and had latched onto the young man at his side - the young warm man.  Matt, however, couldn\'t be sacrificed for such a curiosity, so he knew that there would be no experimentation, no choice other than to leave Chase at his door and amend himself in Matt\'s eyes.  What would that call for? he wondered.

The cab ride to Chase\'s place was mostly in silence, with the three of them squished together in the back, once again with the cool and silent vampire in the middle - the one who in his mortal years had almost become a priest, but his twin had interfered with that as well.

(Continued in \'Caught In The Middle\')