Reconnection

[Trillian]

Ben closed the door behind them and they fell into step together. When Kerr breathed in and turned towards the sky, Ben glanced up as well. Millions of stars sprinkled the sky like pinpricks. He thought if a child had dropped their silver glitter from a great height upon a black sheet of paper, it would look something like this.

Ben's musing of the night sky went on for a much shorter time than Kerr. He smiled at Kerr's description of the stars putting on a 'show' even though he didn't agree with the word. He was of the opinion that the stars were the most basic form of romance. The moon, sure. Stars? They were just more suns that belonged to other planets. Huge balls of gas and fire that could kill him if they shared their light. Or they were already dead and he and Kerr were looking at the last tinge of their memory. Stars were more likely to make him feel insignificant and melancholy. Not a lot of room for romance there.

"I'm not big on running anyway," Ben said with a shrug, the light smile still playing about his lips. He'd tapped into his celerity a few times now but still found it difficult to control unless he was holding hands with Kerr. He'd also been disappointed by the quality of it; celerity was amazing to the observer but nothing special to the one doing it. Ben liked the wind on his face but that was all. The same effect could be achieved driving with the windows down. They both messed up his hair.

The declaration of love came as a surprise. Enough of one that he could feel it on his face. It was mostly in the way Kerr had said it, the way it had tumbled out of his mouth like the words had never been said before. The nature of his expression and tone summoned forth a broader smile on Ben's face and a brief, indulgent chuckle. "I love you too, you weirdo."

Ben took a side step so he could butt his shoulder against Kerr. It was meant to be smooth enough that they could continue walking but he faltered and stopped. Taking advantage of the tiny delay, Ben reached up to wrap his arms around Kerr's neck, linking fingers just past his nape. His sober expression searched Kerr's face before he spoke.

"Thank you for..." everything, he wanted to say, but it was about Kerr letting Ben be who he was, waiting for him to sort himself out, giving him space and time when it would've been difficult to relinquish control. "For this moment. Being where we are right now, I'm grateful."

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr tried an affronted expression when he was called a weirdo but it lasted all of a second before he burst out laughing, his head thrown back in delight. He didn't know if he was weird - he thought not - but he couldn't dismiss it because it was Ben's opinion. A four hundred year old was bound to be perceived as weird by someone so much younger, no matter what. The fact that Ben and he were so different only compounded the effect.

Arms being wrapped about his neck snuffed his mirth and returned a serious demeanour to Kerr. He danced to a halt and automatically placed his hands on Ben's hips, enjoying holding him close in the crisp air, listening to him with tilted head. The expression of thanks was heartfelt and touched Kerr in the same way, the recognition appreciated.

"You're welcome," Kerr returned with a gentle smile. "Thank you for giving me a chance - many chances, really - to be here by your side. I'm not very good at listening but I'm trying to be better at it. I'm grateful for your patience." He kissed Ben's lips as if he was putting a full stop on his sentence.

[Trillian]

The kiss was sweet but too short. Ben went for another, prolonged version. He tilted his head upward to press his lips to Kerr's, holding them there a moment, savouring the sensation of Kerr's familiarity. He moved his head to gently rub them side to side before sucking on Kerr's lower lip, his tongue following soon after. Their kiss deepened to a lazy exploration as Ben's hand pressed on Kerr's nape, feeling muscles moving there while the other readjusted to a hug at Kerr's back, keeping him close.

Ben's thirst pounded and thrummed as a pseudo heartbeat. By the time their lips parted, Ben looked ruffled. His eyes shone with a predatory heat that the kiss had tapped into but wasn't going to be able to sate it.

"Are there any wild animals, like deer?" he asked thickly. In the brief silence that followed, Ben was hyper-aware of creatures all around them on the path. Ignoring the multiple sounds of insects and the chirping of bats, there were small rustling sounds in the brush a distance away and steps that belonged to a slightly bigger animal just over the rise. Deer or wild pig or lost sheep? Ben waited for Kerr's answer.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr became lost in the kiss quickly, though he didn't seek to advance it, content to follow at the pace Ben set. When it broke and he realised that Ben was thirsting far more deeply than he'd seemed to be back at the house, a flare of annoyance had to be quickly squashed. The blood they had in the fridge would have been much easier and cleaner to heat and ingest... but there was something terribly alluring about a predatory Ben, too. Annoyance was swiftly replaced with forgiveness.

"Uh... nothing big," Kerr murmured, forcing his senses to open up to the area around them. Although there were some forested areas around them, they were sparse and not populated by deer. Red deer were generally only found in large-range, dedicated national forest areas these days. Domesticated animals were the most common in this area. "There might be some stoats... " he mused, looking towards a wilder, wooded area up ahead of them.

"One of those sheep is your best bet, right now, though," he grinned, gesturing towards a flock slumbering nearby. They were huddled together for warmth and Kerr knew from experience that wading amongst them to feed from one could cause a wave of panic that everyone in the district would hear, if they weren't careful. "Sheep are what I fed on as a young vampire. The curse of being made in farmland," he chuckled, his eyes glinting at Ben with amusement. "You want me to get one for you, my love?"

He batted his eyelashes for effect, enjoying the feeling of flirting with his man.

[Trillian]

The idea of stoats was intriguing to Ben, who'd never fed from such a creature. He knew it was small but he wondered about the taste of it. He'd tried rats before. While he wasn't overly fussy about where his blood came from when he was thirsting enough to drink from rats, he still didn't care for the taste of carnivores. Herbivores were much better. He was pretty sure stoats were carnivores. He considered asking but the moment passed when Kerr spoke about the sheep and offered to provide for him.

"Sheep are better," Ben said, an educated guess for sheep were bigger and could survive the feeding and they were also herbivores. He wasn't so keen on trying stoat. "But I want to get one together. To learn the best approach."

Ben correctly assumed that the sheep would be skittish if they woke. They were hardly known for being brave animals. Kerr had likely become a master at drinking from animals. Kerr hadn't had a sire willing to teach him anything but Ben did. He intended to learn everything Kerr had on offer, including the deceivingly banal. Knowing how to approach different kinds of creatures would be extremely useful if he and Kerr were ever separated again.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr chuckled at Ben's desire to learn about sheep wrangling. It was kind of absurd - considering how well-provided-for the two of them were, with their fridge full of human blood and their home occupied by willing donors - that their night should feature such a lesson... but it was endearing, too. Ben didn't want Kerr to coddle him but here was an opportunity to share his knowledge. It was an obscure topic, to be sure, but it made Kerr strangely proud to be able to impart the wisdom of his experience upon his fledgeling. He finally felt like a useful sire. Impart, he would.

"Okay," he agreed, his voice automatically lowering as he stepped towards the nearby fence and held the wires apart for Ben to climb through. Once he was afforded the same courtesy and had entered the sheep paddock with Ben, Kerr's quiet steps and muffled instructions resumed. "The thing about sheep is that they're dumb. Pretty easy to get your hands on because they're used to being handled with the shearing. Getting them into that pose is the best to quell them to drink from, too; they're trained into going docile as soon as they're on their backs."

Kerr paused a few metres away from the huddled flock, trying to decide which would be the best to nab. "You'll want an outside one. Easiest to get to, better chance of dragging it away and not disturbing the rest. You'll want to approach swiftly and get your target into position straight away. The rest are going to wake up scared and make a hell of a racket but they won't go too far. You'd get a second chance, if you need it. Not like a cow. A cow'll kick you in the balls and run 'til she sees home, stopping for no-one. Sheep are stupid and they'll hang around to see if maybe they should line up for a turn, rather than running away." He shook his head disapprovingly, communicating silently that he'd seen sheep participate in some very non-life preserving antics in his years.

"You can't control them mentally, either, just in case you were considering trying it. Their brains aren't built for human interference and just trying it will make them explode. Literally. It can get very messy," the sire advised sagely, remembering back to one of his earlier, arrogant experiments but not expanding on the story because Ben was thirsty and he didn't need to be lectured. "Now, have you seen the pose I'm talking about? The shearing position? Or do you need me to demonstrate first?" he enquired, ready to stride forward and flip a sheep for his love's benefit. Ben was a city boy. Kerr highly doubted he'd know what he was talking about but he wasn't going to insult his fledge by pushing forward without doing him the courtesy of asking.

[Trillian]

Ben listened with all the concentration of a student who knows there will be a pop-quiz immediately after class. The concept of putting a sheep onto its back in a familiar pose made sense to him as soon as Kerr said it. The city boy in him wouldn't have come up with that idea on his own, but when the implication came he might not know the position described, he shot an annoyed look Kerr's way.

"I grew up in a city, not on a different planet," he said. He had television to thank for his knowledge though, and while he'd fended Kerr off about demonstrating first, he wished he hadn't been quite so sarcastic. Watching it on television years ago and understanding the concept was one thing. Actually grabbing the sheep and pulling it into position was another.

It took him a moment to properly process the word that Kerr had said just beforehand. Ben had heard 'explode' and thought it stupefied them or made them crazy. But... hadn't he said literally?

"Wait, wait, wait," Ben said, a confused smile on his face as he rested a hand upon Kerr's arm, waylaying him. "Did you say if you use mind tricks on a sheep, it will explode?"

He never wanted to see such a terrible thing happen to an animal and yet he did. The part that was curious enough to sacrifice a sheep's life for the sake of experimentation both horrified him and appealed to him. Who wanted to go through eternity without trying new things? Exploding sheep, though. Was that worth trying? Wasn't it enough that Kerr had tried and exploded one?

"Maybe you went into its mind too fast or something? I mean, you were inexperienced, right?"

Damn it, Ben, are you trying to talk him into exploding a sheep for you?

[Existentially Odd]

At Ben's final question, Kerr's mouth pressed into a straight line and a frown creased his forehead before he deliberately dropped the expression. Damnit. They were getting off track and it wasn't a place he particularly wanted to revisit. He cleared his throat subtly, his gaze sliding away from Ben's and landing on the sheep before them.

"Well, the first time... yes. I tried to find a thought I could control, move the sheep towards me against its will but it just... it sort of twitched - like a gambolling lamb, you know? - jumped up in the air and then blood and brains flew everywhere. Exploded through its eye sockets and ears. Splattered me and then it just fell down dead." Kerr's hands threaded together, thrust upwards and then flew apart from each other in mimicry of the long-ago sheep's brain.

His jaw clenched as he rallied himself to admit the rest of it, dreading Ben's censure. It embarrassed him that he'd killed not one sheep but two all because he had to be sure of what happened. "I tried it again a few months later. I was better at mind penetration by then and-- I mean, they're simple animals. Dumb, like I said. There wasn't anything I could make sense of so I imposed my will on it, you know? It just... the same thing happened. It was definitely me," Kerr admitted, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

He couldn't bring himself to look Ben in the eye. "I killed two sheep because they couldn't handle mind control. I stopped trying to control animals after that. It was awful," he declared, nose wrinkling, lip curling and a shudder rolling across his shoulders.

[Trillian]

Ben's eyes grew round as Kerr described the events. His gaze followed Kerr's hands and as they moved apart, Ben's own hand flew up to cover his mouth. He looked shocked but his eyes were glistening with something that Kerr would recognise as humour.

"That's awful," Ben breathed in a way that sounded like he was holding a great deal of emotion within him. He was caught between trying to console Kerr for what must've been an unpredictable and awful outcome... and just laughing. He could imagine it, with the way Kerr described it. A sheep, first looking stunned then leaping into the air before exploding like an ovine Bouncing Betty.

He thought he could contain his giggles, and he almost had it. Almost. Until Kerr said it happened twice. He made a weird sound behind his hand that easily passed as 'not laughing' until he giggled. He sobered a little bit when Kerr revealed an anxiety about it, but he couldn't help himself from commenting.

"Baa-aa-aa boom!"

Then he cackled.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr's eyes narrowed progressively as Ben's humour grew. He was huffy about having his cautionary tale mocked, though Ben appeared to try to hold it in... until he couldn't and it all came spilling out of him in undignified laughter.

"Shut up!" Kerr hissed, swatting Ben's arm with an open palm. His ire only seemed to make his lover's laughter more robust and Kerr scowled at him in dismay. "It was awful! You'd feel guilty too, if it happened to you," he pouted. "So are you going to grab a sheep now?"

The less time they spent dwelling on exploding sheep, the better, in Kerr's opinion.

[Trillian]

When Kerr failed to see the funny side after initially swatting at him (which Ben had thought was him playing the 'the straight man' act for their comedy duo), Ben's humour dissipated. His high spirits plummeted and he suddenly didn't want to go through catching sheep anymore, regardless of his thirst.

After all the appreciation, love and gratitude they admitted, this was yet another moment that showed with great clarity how much they were ill-suited for one another. An exploding sheep story was funny. He knew the fact of it was not, but the story was.

Ben straightened to his full height and shoved his hands into his coat pockets, pushing down his desire for blood. It went somewhere that he could deal with it better because he'd practised many times to force it away. Even though his expression hardened, he spoke with an easy tone because he didn't want to have to discuss this any further. "You know what? This was a stupid idea. Let's just go to the manor."

Yes, go to the manor and try to capture a bonafide serious moment instead of forcing seriousness into this ridiculous task.

[Existentially Odd]

Ben's reaction surprised Kerr and he immediately regretted it. He'd made a mistake but... he couldn't help doing it and he couldn't take it back now.

As much as he was cognitively aware that his own rigidity about the sheep slaying had closed Ben off, he couldn't bring himself to backtrack and explain. It wasn't about the sheep. It was about losing his moment to be a decent sire right before he was about to visit the place where his life had ended and he'd learnt everything about being a bad one. He was nervous. He wanted to guide Ben, not smother him and his fledge not taking his advice seriously had annoyed him too much.

He was being too much again. He knew it. He just couldn't stop it. And now Ben was upset with him and no longer willing to listen. Right now he felt he was no better a sire than Sawyl had been but he didn't want to give up completely. Ben's thirst had been potent yet drinking was now a 'stupid idea'? That didn't seem right... yet Ben seemed outwardly calm about it.

"Just like that? You're not thirsty? How do you do that?" Kerr asked, sincerely curious. He was risking Ben blowing up at him but he needed to know if he was reading this situation correctly. Could a vampire as young as Ben have such control over his thirst?

[Trillian]

Ben braced himself for a reprimand but a question adjacent to drinking from a sheep came instead. He recognised the genuine interest in Kerr's voice and wondered why he was even asking. But of course, it wasn't Kerr who'd taught him how to deal with his thirst, it was Themba. It wasn't anything the ancient vampire had actually taught him though. Ben had learnt it out of necessity. Out of fear.

He explained it.

"I wasn't always in a place where I could easily have a drink because there were people around," like models, glamorous party-goers, contacts, agents, photographers and the rest, "and I had to figure out a way to push my thirst down. Willpower wasn't good enough but imposing my will was, if I targeted myself." Ben warmed up to the topic while they resumed their walk towards the manor. "It's like the pacify talent you've taught me, the one that makes people docile..." and explodes sheep - he smiled but it was small and fleeting and wasn't enough to take away the shine in his eyes when speaking about anything vampire-power related. "I turn it inward and focus it on my thirst. It's a temporary thing, only until I relinquish control and I need to feed just that little bit extra from holding it down, but I can do it for several hours. I haven't pushed it past four." He made a grimace to imply he didn't want to push it further, either.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr was fascinated, lost in thought as he trailed after Ben and tried to imagine turning his own powers inward to lessen his impulses. Coming from a background of impulse-embracement, it would never have been a concept that entered his mind at such a young age. He didn't judge his bohemian upbringing as superior to Ben's but he definitely appreciated their differences more when the fact of them was laid in front of him in such a manner.

Silence stretched between them after Ben finished speaking and it was because Kerr needed time to gather his thoughts to respond. "I... that's amazing," he marvelled, frowning at the road they'd begun walking on again and shaking his head in wonderment. "It's not anything I've tried before but it sounds like a great pre-cursor to levitation. That's just you turning telekinesis back on yourself so... I wonder if you'll find that easier, because of this, or will it be unrelated? It seems to me like they're both about imposing your powers on yourself for effect so it should work. It's just... you're still so young, really! Even to be able to affect yourself with Will, that's amazing."

He was repeating himself now and it was probably boring but Kerr couldn't help feeling awed by his fledgeling. To an outsider, it would seem so minor but the mental fortitude such a feat took was no easy thing to conquer. His thoughts were swiftly taken over by a sensation of inadequacy once more, compounded by the thought of their destination.

"Sometimes, I think you're a better sire to yourself than I am," he said, issuing an offhanded laugh with the statement that just sounded awkward to his ears. It was hard to make light of a genuine concern he held deep in his heart.

[Trillian]

Ben felt a surge of pride at Kerr's praise. He was aware that he was starting to relish compliments a little too much lately. All that flattery from the general public during the campaign had set his ego up... before it came crashing down. It seemed his ego was ready and willing for compliments again. More meaningful ones this time, from someone he could trust rather than a group of randoms.

"Nobody can replace you," Ben said quietly, for he'd faced an alternative for 18 months. He knew he could survive well enough without Kerr. He'd fallen into the good graces of an ancient family that would've made him their adopted diplomat. But being without a connection to Kerr and having nobody he deeply loved in his life... he'd had to find a way to deceive himself to keep his grief in check. He didn't like the idea but he knew it was possible (even likely) that he and Kerr would break up (again). They'd already done it and come back to each other. But Ben had suffered the loss of Kerr each time. As mismatched as they were, they'd delved too far into each other's souls to back out now without leaving a hole behind.