Descent

[pinkroses]

At her words and that sad look on her face Will felt himself melt, the hard expression slipping away. She could be a pain sometimes, but she was still his and at that moment he wanted to wrap his arms around her and give her a hug. Not that she would like that though.

So instead he held out a hand to her with a warm smile. If she took it, he would lead her gently closer to Indie, and if not he would give a small gesture that she should come with him.

“I know, and that’s partly my fault. But you don’t have to learn and get used to it alone. Now, starting over sounds like a brilliant idea,” he said, his tone full of pride that she was agreeing to this, although he wouldn’t say something so patronising to her.

“Anna, this is my…” Lover? Housemate? Occasional fuck buddy? The vampire I let drink from me? “friend, Indie. We share a house,” William explained to Anna, before turning to Indie.

“Indie, this is my fledgling, Anna,” he said, giving the redhead a smile, hopeful that Indie would go along with this starting over and not be a complete prick.

[Existentially Odd]

When he saw her take her sire\'s hand meekly, a strange and powerful emotion took hold of him, somewhere around his gut and creeping outward from there in sharp jabs.  It pulsed angrily inside him as they turned and walked towards him, and standing up to greet them (fossicking in the bag forgotten) didn\'t help.  It seemed to make it sharper, and hard to speak for a moment, and it took him a while to come up with anything acceptable.

"Yeah," he agreed inanely, glancing from Will to Anna and back again repeatedly.  They looked like quite the happy couple - well, Will did, anyway.  The bitch didn\'t look like she\'d been acquainted with happy in a very long time, though at least she was no longer glaring at him like he was rubbing obscenely up against her personal rocks and spurting cum everywhere.  She still had the stick up her ass though, and he wasn\'t about to go offering her his hand again.

"Hi," he added, flicking the fingers of his right hand in the approximation of a manly wave and then tucking the tips of both hands in the back pockets of his jeans.  A moment of awkward silence felt like it was breathing hotly down his neck, so he filled it quickly, looking at Anna.  "So... you want us to go, then?" he murmured, doing his best not to look resentful (though his brows were drawn down into a frown).  They\'d spent almost half an hour setting everything up and had one run down; he would hate having to pack it up again and go home.

Would she make them?  Would Will give her that much power?  If the blonde decided to appease Anna, Indie would comply, but he\'d be pissed off about it, he knew.  That sharp jabby pain in his gut told him so, even if he couldn\'t pinpoint exactly what it was.

[Saccharin]

"No, you don\'t have to go," she said, smiling wanly. Having expended all her energy on feeding such intense emotions, she was left feeling like a balloon that\'d had all its air released. She wouldn\'t have it in her to fight anything, much less them staying until she had a chance to recharge. For now, she was calm - docile, even.

Still holding William\'s hand, she looked contemplatively up at the cliff and then back at William and Indie in turn. "How\'re you getting up again?" There was an old deer trail that wound its way upward, but she wondered if they\'d hike back using it or climb up using the ropes that were already in place.

[Existentially Odd]

Indie relaxed as she was civil, though he raised his eyebrows in surprise.  He was relieved, but he\'d been ready for a fight or some sort of decision made between him and her and it was quite a shift in gear to just have her... concede.  He didn\'t trust it, but he was willing to play along with it, for the time being.

He made eye contact with Will, silently questioning which one of them would answer and also glancing away, at their rigging.  They usually ran up the trail, though they had had contests based on who could scale the cliff face fastest.  He glanced back at Anna and decided he\'d take the lead, try and make Will understand that he was making an effort too.

"We usually just run up.  Gets us down faster.  It\'s all about the speed, see.  You want a turn?" he offered, not in love with the idea of giving over his harness to her but intrigued about watching her with Will enough that he\'d make that sacrifice.  Once.  Compulsively, he looked back at Will, silently seeking approval and possibly even backup on his offer.

[pinkroses]

Will wasn’t surprised when Anna said they could stay, but he was a little caught unawares by the fact that Indie had asked in the first place - and now that he was asking if Anna wanted to join them - take his place. What was up with these two? Anna was still holding his hand little a little child when he’d only meant to lead her back to Indie, but now he couldn’t bring himself to be the one to let go. Not when she looked so exhausted.

He met Indie’s silent plea with a blank look. Why the Hell did he want Anna encroaching on their time together? If he hadn’t asked Anna probably would have slunk back off to her cabin, or sat quietly and watched them (which might have been a bit weird). Why was Indie so interested in keeping her around? Will still wasn’t best pleased that they’d met this way and didn’t really want them spending more time together until he’d sorted out how he felt about Anna in his own head.

“Yeah, go on, it’s fun,” Will said, tearing his gaze away from his friend to his fledgling, giving her a smile. “Of course, you don’t have to, if you don’t want to. I don’t want to disturb you further if you were busy?” he added with concern in his voice and his grey eyes.

[Saccharin]

Already feeling a bit more like herself, she snorted indelicately when William suggested she might be busy. Her? Busy? She had to be very creative when it came to keeping herself amused, and even then, she struggled sometimes. So she\'d spend hours in a tree in the park several miles away, trying her best not to think about how bored she was. Busy. Ha.

But that didn\'t mean she was interested in climbing up a cliff by pulling herself up a rope. For one, she didn\'t have shoes, and for two... well, it was just stupid. There was a perfectly good path she could go up that wouldn\'t tear her feet to shreds if she wanted to fling herself off the cliff, and she didn\'t, because it didn\'t serve any purpose at all.

"I\'ll watch," she decided, sliding her hand from William\'s and taking a step back. With her hands free, she reached up to pull the long braided rope that kept her dark hair contained over her shoulder and ran her fingers through the tuft at the end. "But thanks," she tacked on, glancing from William to Indie.

It\'d been the appropriate thing to say, she thought, thanking someone for an offer that she\'d declined. She watched their reactions to see if her assumption had been correct.

[Existentially Odd]

Indie glanced at Will, gave a shrug that was part relief, part disinterest and headed towards the bottom of the trail that would get them back up the top of the cliffs in a fairly swift time.

If Will chose to say anything to him, he would stop and listen, otherwise he would wait until they were hooking on again at the top before he asked Will, "How long you think she\'s gonna\' stand there and watch us?"

[pinkroses]

“All fucking night. Doesn’t look like there’s anywhere else to be apart from this wild party,” Will said with a decidedly bitter note to his voice as he shot a sharp glance towards the redhead. He’d maintained a stony silence on the way up, trying to decide how best to deal with this now the situation had been dumped in his lap.

What the fuck had he been thinking, practically inviting her to stay with them tonight? And what would happen when they wanted to go home? She’d probably end up coming with them. Will knew she’d probably be able to locate him at home through the bond, but there was a difference between that and actually inviting her along. He didn’t want her there, not yet. Or ever. She was separate to his life with Indie and Will didn’t want her ruining the delicate balance he and Indie found themselves in.

But he couldn’t exactly say that to Anna. Or to Indie. And if he said what he was thinking out loud, that he wanted Anna to go, she might hear, and he didn’t want her upset again.

So damn temperamental, all of them.

“You’re just trying to sabotage my run,” he said, aiming for a more light hearted tone since things clearly weren’t going to get better on their own as they prepped for the trip down again.

“You get to do the count this time.” It would be nice to just chill up here, alone, but they couldn\'t just leave her waiting down there. This was all just so messed up.

[Existentially Odd]

In position and readying to descend, the redhead glanced over his shoulder to the fledgling on the ground far below.  She seemed to have found herself a rock to perch on, which certainly lent credence to Will\'s belief she\'d be there all fucking night.  Great.  He turned his concerned expression towards his buddy.

"I was just trying to show you I was being nice," he told the blonde defensively.  "I figured she\'d want to wait and see we weren\'t doing anything wrong and then she\'d fuck off," he said quietly, disappointment that Will didn\'t seem to think this would happen evident in his voice.

"We\'re hardly a wild party for her to crash," he stated wryly, his inability to keep the smile off his face now that he was alone and more relaxed with Will rearing once more.  "It ain\'t like she\'s dressed for it, anyway.  I reckon you should prolly take her shopping and buy her some new clothes.  It\'s far too easy to imagine what\'s going on underneath those ones," he teased, waggling his eyebrows.

It hadn\'t escaped his attention that Anna was an exotic beauty.  Given better circumstances, he\'d definitely have tried to nail her by now... but her circumstances were such that the impulse hadn\'t really come at him, despite his insinuations.  It likely had a lot to do with his stabby gut feeling, for he wasn\'t entirely able to see her in her own right yet; she was still intertwined with Will and he was curious and defensive about that state of affairs to the point of blindness for the time being.

He had noticed her clothes didn\'t do her justice, though, and he hoped mentioning it might score him some Will brownie points.  They didn\'t have to go shopping right now, it could become their next \'making friendly\' outing as sire and fledge... and maybe he could tag along and keep an eye on them.  He desperately wanted to watch them together.

[pinkroses]

“Maybe she will go, but it’s just as possible she’ll just sit there the whole night,” Will said, looking towards his friend with a frown. “And I appreciate you trying to be nice, but… I’m still trying to get to know her again, I would’ve been happier about you two meeting if it had just been in a month or so,” he said with a shrug.

At the comment about her clothes Will raised an eyebrow, resisting the urge to either smack Indie around the head or glance back over his shoulder at where his fledgling was perched. He most definitely did not want Indie thinking about what was under Anna’s clothes and he doubted Anna would be best pleased about it either, not given the way she’d reacted to Indie at first. Fuck, what if they did start hitting it off though? What if they ended up fucking every night and Will lost them both.

“Here’s an idea. When we get back down there why don’t you suggest the whole shopping thing to her? I’m sure she’d love that considering she’s been wearing those clothes since she arrived here and looks at me like I’m a fucking leper when I suggests she could use some new stuff,” Will said sarcastically. “Some sort of vendetta against materialism crap. Who gives a fuck,” he added in a muttered voice. Knowing his luck though if Indie did suggest it she would leap at the idea, that would be just typical.

[Existentially Odd]

Indie gave Will a level stare, his expression deadly serious.  "Dude.  She wouldn\'t even shake my fucking hand.  How the fuck\'m I gonna\' tell her to let you buy her new shit and she listen to me?"

[pinkroses]

“She doesn’t listen to me when I tell her that either. Or even when I ask nicely for her to let me. Maybe I should just dump a pile of shopping bags on her front step. She’d still wear that combo,” Will said, glad that the wind whistle around them would be covering the voices from her to be able to hear.

“She’d probably listen to you just to spite me.”

[Existentially Odd]

For some reason, those final words made the redhead feel extremely agitated and uncomfortable, and he shuffled his feet and fiddled with his harness quite a lot before he managed to get a reply out.

"Yeah, I... don\'t wanna\' get in the middle.  I jus\'... I\'m learning about... about fledglings I guess... that\'s all I\'m in it for," he finished, his awkward and somewhat stammering statement finally drawing to a close.  He was only able to make surreptitious eye contact with Will for some reason, and he wasn\'t sure why.

In his head, Will\'s words from the night before - about not leaving him - were going round and round like a mantra.

[pinkroses]

At Indie’s words Will’s frown deepened and he stepped away from the edge of the cliff to face the redhead properly. He’d put himself out on a ledge of Indie, said he wouldn’t leave, but it sounded as though Indie was seriously considering making a fledgling of his own and that would suck beyond belief.

“You don’t want a fledgling,” Will said, half stating it, half asking a question. Why the hell else would Indie be so interested in learning about fledglings? Will had thought it was just jealousy about Will having a link to Anna, but if Indie made a fledgling their bond would be fresh and new, not tainted by distance and bad feeling. It would be completely different and Will could see Indie being completely sucked in by it.

[Existentially Odd]

"No, I just..." the forgetful vampire frowned, instinctively shuffling closer to Will so that their arms brushed against one another, and then he shrugged, unable to finish his sentence out loud.

He didn\'t want his own fledgling now, he was secure with what Will had told him.  But that didn\'t stop him wanting to understand what Will had with Anna, to find out how much of a threat she was to his friendship with Will.

With this one thought, the stabby feeling in his gut resolved itself, letting him know that it was gnawing worry, insecurity and jealousy all rolled into one horrible knot of anxiety inside him.  Anna had a stronger hold on Will than he did; he might choose her over him.

Somewhere inside him, something devious began thinking of things that he could do and ways that he could keep Will.  He looked the blonde in the eye, squinting thoughtfully at him.  "I just want to understand you and her," he said.