Afterwards

[The Cedar Witch]

continued from Sizing Up


"I just wanna go home."  If only home felt just as safe as it always had.  Rachel accepted no comfort from Damien after Decker left, fearing it would let loose the semblance of control she had over herself. 

She was quiet during the walk to the car, tension holding her together more than her willpower.  Though her grip was numb she accepted his hand on the drive home, messily threading her fingers with his.  Thoughts raced, warring with the calm Damien pressed into her.  Beneath that imposed calm she felt panicked claustrophobia like the pressure was smothering her. 

It was like taking a pill for pain but still feeling the ghost of it beneath the effects of the medication.

[Saiketsu]

He didn't know what say to her, but just held her hand and rubbed her fingers tenderly as he drove with his left, his elbow resting on the moulding by the window. Damien sat half in his own thoughts, half worried about hers, easing off the calming weight slowly as he drove. The silence in the car, only mitigated by the sound of the engine, was extraordinarily uncomfortable, heavy.

At last he spoke. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought you." Guilt and frustration peppered his voice and he kept his eyes on the road. Decker's insinuation that he couldn't keep Rachel safe by himself ate at him in the worst way. Doubt filled him with dread and a building sense of despair that he did his best to keep contained within himself and out of his responses to her.

[The Cedar Witch]

A sigh made its way from her constricted throat.  "No, it's not your fault."  Her gaze stayed firmly on the passenger window as they made the first of a handful of turns leading toward home.

"I had to see him, you know?"  A nervous laugh broke through the tension she'd been holding onto.  She didn't want to feel like this, it would have been so much easier to forget everything Decker said.  Rachel gave Damien's hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze. 

[Saiketsu]

He took the hand that he held and brought her fingers up to his lips as he drove, clutching them there against his chest. Damien nodded in acknowledgement. "Last time I made the mistake of not letting you know who you were going to be with. I figured this time it would be better to have you there in case you had some concerns I hadn't covered. Had I known we wouldn't have been dealing with a jackass, I would have left you in Quinn's care or something."

There was a strange cocktail of emotion brewing within him and he was surprised to hear some of it slip out in his response to Rachel, his accent tinting his words more noticeably than if he were calm. "I don't like him," Damien decided coolly. "He is condescending, blunt, and rude and lacks all tact to be able to do this job." He didn't like bringing his anger to Rachel. His frustration and defensiveness over his pet - and perhaps even his own pride, he admitted quietly to himself - added emotion to his logic that he knew otherwise shouldn't have been there. Damien sighed through his nose, a scowl in his brow and his mouth turned downwards. He remained in that space, finding an odd comfort in it.

[The Cedar Witch]

Rachel turned toward him as he kissed her fingers, watching the subtle shift in his expression as he spoke.  Truthfully, she'd been too caught off guard by her emotional response to Decker's...warning (or whatever it was supposed to be) to even think of questions she might've wanted to ask.  But there was no way they could've anticipated that reaction.

Gnawing thoughtfully on the inside of her lower lip, she turned away from him to look out the window again.  It was easier to worry about how he was feeling than deal with whatever mess that'd curled itself into a ball in the bit of her stomach. 

"I don't understand why Sonya likes him," she muttered quietly.  They were only a few minutes from home now and she was suddenly very thirsty.  "They must not talk very much."  She laughed quietly at first, and it unleashed a fit of unsettling giggles.  Pulling her hand from his grasp, she covered her face to try to contain the laughter.  It felt more precarious than funny, like leaning over the edge of a cliff. 

[Saiketsu]

Damien found the remark only vaguely humorous, wrapped up in his own reactions to Decker - did he even have a first name? Somehow, he had forgotten to ask the human - and he looked at her briefly as she fell into her frantic fit of laughter. Besides offering a weary smirk, Damien didn't react to her inference.

"Well, he's at least not hiding anything. At least not anything that I can discern." He paused, thinking.

"I don't think we should consider him, Rache. He's human, first of all. I really don't want you out there with a human. He's never even fought a supernatural before. It would be suicide for him."

[The Cedar Witch]

By the time Damien started to speak, she'd recovered from her little bout of laughter.  She leaned heavily against the back of the car seat, closing her eyes and angling her head toward the ceiling. 

"Not like we have many options."  Her words were bitter.

[Saiketsu]

He sighed through his nose and let the moment pass undisturbed and frustrated. It was something that he was well aware of and her bitter response made a pang of guilt echo somewhere deep in his chest.

"I'm not willing to chose just anyone based on a limited availability, Rachel." He remained quiet, listening to whatever Rachel said, but not responding to it as he lost himself in a darker thought.

"...in a controlled environment where they're more likely to be alone, vulnerable and with no risk of witnesses. It's where I'd do it."

Decker's comment about Rachel's concern during the day still dug at him. Not only had he inferred that Rachel wasn't safe with him, but also that Decker was of a similar mindset as Laurent. Did he really want to have someone like that near him and his? It had been a very long time since a human had gotten so under his skin and it was more than uncomfortable. He began to second guess himself, his reasons for keeping Rachel safe. Maybe Laurent wasn't even out there, maybe he was killed, or moved on. It was neurotic of him to keep obsessing over Rachel, right? Almost as obsessive as Damien thinking that Laurent was the neurotic one.

"He certainly does have some nerve though."

[The Cedar Witch]

"I know," her voice was small, "I just..."  She sighed again, leaning her head against the window.  Despair began to creep in again, increasing her desire to get home.

"He did seem to really know what he was talking about though," she began softly, "More than Greg, anyway."  Her lips pressed firmly together.  While she was glad to not have to deal with the shifter, she was essentially back under house arrest.

Which now seemed pointless after Decker had just told them both that she wasn't any safer at home. 

[Saiketsu]

"Yes, but that seemed more due to the fact Decker was a criminal for half of his life," he agreed reluctantly, a bite of his injured pride coming through as a tone of lofty judgement. He regretted it as soon as it passed his lips, admonishing himself privately, though admitting his defeat with another sigh.

The rest of the car ride remained relatively quiet, both of them buried in the heaviness of their thoughts about the interview. Damien parked the car in the garage and threw the alarms on. Delilah padded her way over to them and circled excitedly, her fluffy tail arched and relentless in its oscillation. Distractedly, Damien threw some more dry kibble into her bowl and gave her some brief affection before turning to Rachel. She was leaning with her back against the edge of the island, looking down into her phone. Damien stood before her and wrapped her into his arms, her head resting on the crook of his arm and shoulder. He kissed her hair and held her tightly to him, the contact soothing some of his frustration with Decker.

"You feel so good," he murmured against her, feeling the tension of the night start to ebb away. "We could just stay like this forever, you know. I could just carry you like this against me forever. Nobody would dare mess with you then." He smirked against her hair and rubbed her back with one of his hands, pulling away if she indicated that she wanted distance.

[The Cedar Witch]

Rachel sighed heavily, melting against him without putting up any resistance.  She slipped her phone into her pocket to snake her arms around him, pulling him tighter against her.  What she wanted was to dissolve into Damien's embrace and seep into his skin--go someplace where no one could touch her but she could always be with him. 

"What if he's right?"  Her whisper would've been missed by human ears but she knew he'd pick up on it.  Unconsciously she braced herself for the stern reaction she knew was coming, but she couldn't keep the thoughts inside her head anymore.  Besides, she knew they were probably both wondering it. 

[Saiketsu]

"He's not," Damien said firmly and immediately. "This is the safest place for you, here, in this house. With me.

"He only thinks those things because he doesn't know." He pulled away from her now in order to put his hands on the outsides of her arms. "He thinks that I have to sleep during the day like young ones do. He doesn't know about the Room upstairs. He doesn't know about all the things that we already do."

[The Cedar Witch]

What if she couldn't reach the room in the closet in time?  What if she was taken from the backyard in the daytime while she was out with Delilah?  What if He smashed the bedroom window in while they were lying in bed in the early afternoon and snatched her?

Fighting the fear creeping into her face she pulled away from his touch and, avoiding his eyes, went to the refrigerator for a bottle of water.  She came back to him with an outstretched hand, linking their fingers together so she could lead him to the couch. 

Once they were sitting, Rachel folded herself into him.  "I just..." her voice came out like a little squeak and she curled tighter against his chest.  "I feel like we've been living in this little fantasy world where everything's okay and everything he said just shattered that."  Her hands clutched gently at Damien's shirt.  "I just want to go back to pretending." 

[Saiketsu]

There was a stubborn part of him that wanted to disagree still, to disregard anything that Decker had said tonight. He was just a human after all...

He draped his arm around her back as she tucked herself, leaning onto his chest and shoulder, the hairs on the top of her head tickling his throat. Her stress was radiating off of her, tinting her blood beneath her skin. "It's going to be difficult, Rache, these next few months. I need you to be as safe as you can possibly be, but I need you to live as well."

And then as if as an afterthought to himself, "If he's out there, we will know soon enough." He put his cheek down on the top of her head and looked off at nothing in particular, thoughts swimming with second-guesses, worry, and scenarios he wasn't prepared to handle with Rachel so close to him.

[The Cedar Witch]

Defeat moved over her, visions of venturing out in the sunlight slipping slowly through her fingers.  "So, what, should I just stay here then until it's over?"  Back under house arrest.  Rachel wriggled slightly in his arms, seeking a comfortable nook to melt into. 

"This was such a stupid idea, I don't know what I was thinking," she murmured, half to herself, into his chest.

[Saiketsu]

He sighed. "No. I want you to have a life outside of this house. I can't keep you cooped up in here any longer, especially now that you've tasted freedom." Damien smirked sadly against her hair, his heart heavy.

"Give me one week to figure out something. Can you stay home with me for a week?" He asked hopefully, knowing the solution wasn't perfect (or anywhere close to it, for that matter). "We can invite Quinn over on Thursday if you'd like?"

[The Cedar Witch]

"Not like I have a choice," she muttered against him, shoulders sagging heavily at the exhale of a sigh.  Was she overreacting?  She could feel herself oscillating between the grip of helplessness and stubborn persistence.  Every bit of her - even the bits squashed by fear - rebelled against the notion that she should stay inside and hide.  Even though that seemed like the safest, smartest option. 

Rachel remained quiet as she mulled over the interview bit by bit.  Decker was gruff, sure, but he didn't set off any alarm bells in her mind.  He seemed more than willing to challenge Damien if it came to making decisions in the best interest of her safety and that alone was impressive (even if it did rub Damien the wrong way).  But from the sound of things, if it were entirely up to Decker she wasn't even sure if he'd think it was a good idea for her to go out and about, do normal shit like errands. 

Some life.

After another sigh, she glanced hesitantly at Damien's face, wondering where his mind was and not sure if she wanted to know.  "I know you're not going to want to hear this," she said quietly, avoiding his eye, "But Decker seems like the best fit out of everyone we've seen so far."

[Saiketsu]

Once again he sighed impatiently through his nose, the irritation that Decker had caused in him stirring again at her words as she knew it would. He kept silent, his lips pressed into a grim line. Rachel's closeness, her warmth, and her human rhythms against him both calmed him and made his heart ache, bringing forth that fiercely protective side. Thoughts of her death and the subsequent panic he would undoubtedly feel threatened to remain a closer companion than the human. To fend it off, Damien squeezed his human a bit tighter, not unlike a pouting child.

Somewhere a part of him knew Decker was the only one they had interviewed with the right mindset, the right ideas about what Rachel's safety actually might look like. Damien hadn't realized what was missing from the other candidates until Decker had voiced it earlier.

"...not everybody will feel the same way or look at this as more than just a job."

In his own adoration and care for Rachel - something that was still relatively new after 300 years of being alone - he had forgotten that there would be those who would see this as just an opportunity to earn money while making a satisfactory living. Those like Greg. The night that the shifter had been fired, Damien had crawled into bed next to Rachel and apologized profusely, taking away her own ability to be out during the day. And while Rachel had understood and validated the concerns that he had expressed that night, there was still something bitter about the whole thing - an audacity that Damien just couldn't understand. Was he not paying Greg enough to care? Was the assignment too boring? Had Damien just overlooked the details of the shifter's credentials in the excitement of finding someone at last?

But then Decker had given voice to what Damien knew the whole time, the words escaping him when he needed it.

"I know. But he's human, Rachel. How are we supposed to look passed that?" He shifted her off of him and adjusted himself so that his chest was square to her, one knee folded and pressed into the couch as he spoke to her over his lap, the other foot flat on the floor. "This is ultimately your decision, not mine. You need to feel safe and trust whoever it is that is taking you out into the city." He took her hand and held it on top of his thigh between them, a despondent anxiety making him unconsciously rub his thumb over the length of her index finger as he laced his fingers with hers. He looked at her seriously, trying not to hide how he was actually feeling from her as he usually did in situations like this. "Do you trust him?"

[The Cedar Witch]

Immediately she regretted sharing that thought aloud.  His movement prompted a small noise of protest but she didn't try to stop him from putting space between them.  She watched his finger trace her skin as he spoke, fighting the urge to scramble into his lap.

Do you trust him?

It was a question she was expecting and one she'd been chewing over since the interview. 

You'll be safe with me.

The conviction, the promise, hadn't left her mind despite all of her emotional bullshit that came bubbling up.  She was impressed by him, really, after the underwhelming pool of applicants that came before.  None had talked about researching what they were up against.  They seemed more interested in the pay than the job - not that she'd blame someone for that.  Everybody's got to make a living somehow.  Decker seemed interested in more than that.  Or at least that was the impression she'd gotten, given the complete lack of ass-kissing during the exchange (not that ass-kissing was a requirement, but if she wanted the job she'd be bending over backward to make a good impression). 

Literally the only downside to the entire thing was the fact that he was human.  But that didn't mean she couldn't trust him.

"Yeah, actually, I do." she exhaled a sort of chuckle, stuttered with disbelief.  A slow sigh came next and she detangled her fingers from Damien's to wrap her arms tightly around herself. 

"I know he's human," she began slowly, gnawing gently on her lower lip, "And we could keep looking for someone who isn't.  But what if we find someone who's no better than the last guy?"  A look of desperation rushed to the surface.

"Or what if we never find someone good enough, and I'm just hiding here forever until - " Until I die.  But that sounded overdramatic so she kept it to herself.  Getting old and dying wasn't something that she wanted to think about right now anyway.  In her mind, that was a future far, far away or something that just wasn't going to happen to her.  Somehow.

[Saiketsu]

Her words had the effect of sobering his anger, his frustration. Damien shifted himself closer to her, feeling her discomfort, her fright and worry. With a practiced maneuver, he slipped his arm behind her neck and she slipped into his embrace, still holding her arms to her body, her gaze cast downward and away from him. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, holding her close to his body, his cheek returned to the top of her head. With a hesitant hand she gripped onto his shirt, a small gesture of remaining present with him despite her feelings. Too many nights they had sat like this for long minutes, wordlessly attempting to comfort each other when their thoughts and fears became too much for the other to handle. Practicing being present.

The thought of losing her, of facing her death washed over him like a storm surge and threatened to drown him. He breathed deeply with the unconscious effort to loosen the vice-like grip on his ribs and chest. Images of how it might happen flashed through his mind like a film and turned into a downward spiral he didn't want to descend into. What would it feel like to miss her warmth, her laugh? To lose her presence in his nights? In his bed? How would Delilah take her absence? His fingers pulled Rachel closer and Damien put his lips to her forehead again, trying to chase the thoughts away by squeezing his eyes shut.

Come back to me, her words echoed in him somewhere, a memory of another sad time together in bed when Lucretia had interrupted something tender between them.

Damien opened his eyes and placed soft kisses repeatedly on her skin, enjoying the soft warmth of her.

She was with him and they were Present together.

He rubbed her arm to reconfirm their placement together on the couch, his care and need for her. His tone was gentle and weary, with a lingering attempt to be confident for her. "We will figure this out together, I promise." He wrapped his other arm around her and pulled her closer, comforted by the way her breath feathered against his Adam's apple and collar bones. "But not tonight. We should approach this with clear heads, yes?"

She gave him a nod before looking up with a tired, doe-eyed, guilt-ridden expression. He couldn't help but kiss the bridge of her nose then, eliciting a small, sad smile from her.