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Post by Ray on Dec 31, 2017 17:17:52 GMT -7
Adrian smiles a little at her words, her reaction far better than he expected. She laughs again, the second time in as many days, and he finds himself glad to hear that sound. She's been so somber for so long. They both have. A part of him wondered if they'd ever find solace again, a reason to smile after London. That city, that man, ruined the both of them -- turned Katherine into a shell of her former self and made Adrian realize just how childish and cruel he has been for so long. They'd ran in order to fix themselves, to set themselves right, and yet years have passed with little more progress than the distance they've put between them and that ill-fated city.
He did not expect them to be like this, even if a little awkward, for a long time. Perhaps not ever.
"I'm glad." He replies with a small nod, the smile pulling a little further. "I'm not exactly the champion of giving comfort, but....I'm glad I at least helped in some way." A beat of silence follows where Adrian just watches her smile, feeling a little better himself just seeing it, as if there is a possibility of growing from here. As if there is a possibility of truly leaving London behind.
If Katherine can do, perhaps he can too.
"You look a little better," he admits.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 31, 2017 17:46:06 GMT -7
Katherine had to admit that she never thought she would have to rely on anyone because of the fact that she was the strong one, she was the one they could rely on not to fall apart but she fell. She fell so far that she hadn't been able to put herself together. Looking after Adrian, making sure that he got off the blood that she had got him hooked on had been her first priority after leaving London. He eventually got better but she, well she fell backwards. Not into blood but she fell into herself and would rather stay in and lock the door than go out into the streets.
It was only after she started to get hooked on whiskey and dulling the pain that she actually left the flat.
She looked down when he spoke about the fact that he was glad that he could help her. She had just needed someone to hold on too and he had been the person to actually do it. He had been the one who held her and had waited til she finished crying. In a way he had been the one to save her when she had felt at her lowest last night. Katherine looked up at him and scoffed when he said that she looked better.
That was definitely a lie, she had tear stained cheeks and her hair, although brushed, probably still looked a mess. “I look really bad but thank you for actually lying” she said in a soft tease before biting on her lip once more. Katherine actually did feel a little better after crying last night so maybe she was able to clear her mind a little bit. Maybe she was able to clear everything with her a little bit so that she could see a way forward rather than going back.
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Post by Ray on Dec 31, 2017 18:04:34 GMT -7
"No, yeah, you look horrible," Adrian replies with a hint of a laugh upon his lips, joking more than she probably believes. The remnants of the night still remain stained on her otherwise pale cheeks, and her eyes are red-rimmed and a little bloodshot from sleeplessness. But despite that, she's still Katherine. She could be drenched in rain and mud and she'd still look far more beautiful than most of the women walking the streets. A simple truth that any man or woman with eyes would agree with. It's no wonder that she stole the hearts of two kings in her time. Her face is the kind that could launch a thousand ships if she so much as wished it.
That much he is certain.
His amused smirk turns a little softer though as he continues, bobbing his head as he relents, "I meant that you seem better." He explains, "I know you probably don't feel that way but...you're actually laughing."
He's a little hesitant to say that, a little worried that pointing out the smiles that have suddenly begun to grace her lips or the laughs that she was given freely will cause them to disappear just as quickly. But maybe not. Hopefully not. He much prefers her like this than the melancholy woman he's been trying his hardest to keep at arm's length for her sake for the past few years.
"It's good."
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 31, 2017 18:16:24 GMT -7
Katherine huffs out a soft laugh before scratching at her cheek. Leave it to him to make a joke. Before she had been so worried about looking human because she didn’t want to be found out, she didn’t want anyone to come knocking on their door and taking them away to die but it seemed she didn’t have anything to worry about.
Now she just doesn’t try so hard is she’s honest. Her curly hair stays that way and she makes sure to sweep it back under a hat if she wants to keep it out of her eyes but other than that she leaves it down and out of the way. It does get in her eyes so maybe she should cut it.
Adrian speaks again and he says about the fact that she seems better and that she’s laughing. It probably had been hell living with her over the last few years. Katherine never smiling, never laughing and making sure to keep him at arms length so that he doesn’t find out just what really happened at that estate in London. She couldn’t bear to see him look at her like she was evil. So she kept it to herself, kept the nightmares to herself until last night that is.
“Who knows maybe it’ll be the start of me finally coming back to myself” she admitted and smiled at him softly. Katherine had been missing for a long time so maybe it was time that she finally came home. Maybe it was time that she stopped running and let someone in for the first time in a while.
She then wondered if they should talk about that kiss...
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Post by Ray on Dec 31, 2017 18:35:37 GMT -7
“I hope so,” Adrian replies.
God knows they’ve suffered for long enough. Her most of all, haunted by the ghosts of those she’d been manipulated into taking. Haunted by the lingering presence of Drake’s influence. He can’t imagine what it must have been like, having someone else twist her into the thing he wanted, having a monster pretend to be her savior. It could have been him so easily swayed. Had it not been Katherine, pulling him back from every edge, taking care of him when she had no reason to other than the desperate wish of a long-gone man, Adrian would have fallen so easily.
But it’s been years. More than a decade of sorrow and drinking and guilt. More than a decade of Adrian watching her from across the room as she sits in silence, trying to forget about London. More than a decade since the last time she smiled this much.
It’s about time she finds herself again. She deserves to.
“I miss you yelling at me.” He adds on with a small, amused smile.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 31, 2017 18:47:45 GMT -7
Katherine watches him when he speaks and for a moment wonders just what she looks like to him. Does he see Katherine as she used to be? The vampire that would laugh like there was no tomorrow? Did he see the woman that saved him time and time again because she knew just how cruel the world could be? Or did he see the Katherine now and her ghosts that she carried with her everywhere they went? Did he see the hollow shell of a woman who had fell so far from the high point that she had been standing on?
She wasn’t sure just what he saw when he looked at her up until he said that he missed her yelling at him. Before she used to yell at him all the time about leaving her girls alone or for some stupid thing that he would get himself in too but the last decade.. it was like she didn’t have the heart or even the spirit to yell at him. Mostly because she didn’t feel like herself. Katherine had one job and that had been to get him back off of the blood and she done that but she had let herself go down hill because to Katherine she deserved to carry the faces of the people she killed.
She deserved to be haunted by this but Adrian didn’t. He didn’t deserve the past that she had carried with her.
Katherine chewed on her lip for another moment and she let a smile pull at her lips “Who knows maybe one day I will yell at you again” she said with a soft tease before nudging his other shoulder.
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Post by Ray on Dec 31, 2017 19:13:07 GMT -7
Adrian laughs a little, letting her nudge his shoulder almost playfully, almost like she used to. "It's about time," he replies, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning his shoulder into the wall beside him. Over the last six centuries that they've known each other, yelling at him has been the foundation of whatever it is that has bound them together for so long. Even during the good parts of those years, even during the best parts, she's always been ready to let him know precisely how against his forms of entertainment she is, picking up right where Fili left off but with far more volume and annoyance on her part. It had become expected, even during those years where they slept together to pass the time.
Especially those years. Almost every single time they fell into bed, it was seconds after she told him to shut his mouth.
That thought creeps in unexpectedly, along with the moments that followed, along with the kiss she gave him late last night.
Adrian clears his throat faintly, unfolding his arms to lift a hand and push his hair back. He looks away, trying to find something else to distract him from saying something stupid, or doing something stupid, or thinking something stupid. All of which he is particularly known for. "Anyway." He says, coming up short, "I'll let you get dressed."
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 31, 2017 19:25:01 GMT -7
Katherine knows that it was time that she got back to herself but sometimes that was harder than it looked. It wasn’t as if she could press a button and go back to being happy, there was a long time of her not being so happy. Of her looking over her shoulder to see if Drake was there. Even if she knew he wasn’t, she knew she would never see him again after he had messed her up good.
She gives a smile and looks down. Her dark eyes looking to her hands as she started to play with them. For the first time in a while she wanted to be better. Katherine wanted to smile and make him laugh and yell at him for no reason but right now she was going to take it a little bit at a time.
Katherine looks up when he speaks about letting her get dressed and she pushed her eyebrows together and glanced down to remember that she was in fact still standing in her night dress. The one that liked to hug her breasts and her hips nicely giving her the shape of a woman. “I should get dressed” she said and nodded for a moment and she swallowed hard as she kept her eyes on him.
She cleared her throat and smiled before she turned away from him.
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Post by Ray on Dec 31, 2017 19:42:01 GMT -7
She looks down at the nightdress she still wears, as if momentarily forgetting in the midst of their conversation that she had never gotten dressed. Adrian's own eyes drift down, skimming over the way it clings shapely to her figure, hiding very little of what he's already seen more times than he can count on a single hand. She speaks, agreeing with him, and Adrian's eyes flick back upwards to meet hers, nodding once with her until she turns away.
As soon as her back is to him, Adrian pushes himself off of the wall and rolls his eyes at his own stupidity. He's acting like a teenage boy with a woman he's known for centuries, fretting over a simple kiss, lingering on their past affair, looking at her as if he's never seen a woman in a form-fitting nightgown before. It's foolish. Embarrassing, even, at how quickly a small little kiss in the dead of night from a sobbing woman has thrown him through a loop. Maybe he needs to get out more. Find a girl. Take his mind off things. It's been a while since he's had a clandestine roll in the hay with anyone, too afraid that the fine line of his sobriety will disappear if he lets himself get carried away.
Separating sex and eating was never a strong-suit for him, and especially not when he's still recovering.
His feet carry him to the sitting room to busy himself cleaning up the empty bottles, needing something to do with his hands and keep him preoccupied. His hair falls back into his eyes as he picks them up one at a time, swearing under his breath at his own coyness.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 31, 2017 19:55:57 GMT -7
Katherine had been heading to the bathroom when he had made her jump, wanting to wipe away the tear stains that had formed on her face but after her conversation with him she had completely forgotten that not only had she been standing in her night dress but also that she had been heading to the bathroom but she would have to do that once she was dressed.
She glanced over her shoulder at Adrian but he had already walked away and she pushed her eyebrows together and wondered just what was going on with the man. Katherine guessed that her coming out of her shell was affecting him that much. She put her lips together before walking into her room and shutting the door behind her. He had seen her naked a few times but that had been before. That had been while they were in London and things had changed quickly.
She moved around her room getting her clothes together and Katherine glanced in the direction of her door and wondered if the kiss from last night was still affecting him because that was the last thing she wanted. She knew she should’ve said something before but now she was going too.
Katherine pulled the door to her room open and she marched in the direction of where he was. “I’m sorry that I kissed you last night” she said and cleared her throat before nodding her head once. “I was upset and you were there and I kissed you but I don’t want things to be awkward... especially when we have to live together and I’m going to shut up now” she huffed out and hesitated for a moment before nodding once more and then walking back to her room.
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Post by Ray on Dec 31, 2017 20:14:26 GMT -7
He straightens and glances back, bottles held in his hands, when Katherine suddenly comes marching into the sitting room, his brows pressing close. Her apology is sudden, catching him by surprise. Adrian hadn't planned on mentioning the kiss, not unless she did, not unless she wanted to. It had been a spur of the moment thing, an action caused by fear and despair and a need for comfort, and as much as it threw him, he knows that. But the apology, and the moment of hesitation that follows before she disappears again, only makes him think that maybe it had caught her off guard too.
"Kat, wait," Adrian says quickly, dropping the bottles back onto the small coffee table with a quiet clatter, before jumping forward a step to catch her in the hallway before she disappears entirely back into her bedroom and shut him out completely again. He sets his palm on the frame of her door, managing to get there before she can close the door, "You don't..." he starts, not even knowing what he plans on saying, "You don't have to apologize. I'm sorry if I'm acting strange, it's just..." he sighs out a breath inclining his head to the side before looking away for a moment. He worries his lower lip between his teeth for a moment.
As he releases it, a quick smile twitches at his lips before he sets his eyes back on her, "We've known each for six hundred years, and somehow it feels like we're just now meeting all over again. We've lived in the same house, drank at the same bars, and yet we've been total strangers for a decade. If that makes any sense." He lets his hand fall from the door frame. "I'm just trying to do this right, this time."
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 31, 2017 20:31:44 GMT -7
Katherine heard him call her name and she just about made it to her room when he caught up with her and he stopped her from shutting the door up. She listened to what he was saying and watched as he seemed to not know what to say. If she was honest kissing Adrian hadn’t been the highest thing on her list, Hell she didn’t even have a list for kissing him to be on but it happened and last night he mentioned about making them some tea so she thought maybe things had got a bit awkward and then this morning when she found him outside of her room.
She had to admit that if other vampires were in her position when it came to him they would have let him go a long time ago. They wouldn’t have bothered having him around for over six centuries but she had turned him. Maybe Katherine felt responsible for what happened afterwards when it came to him. Other vampires wouldn’t have sat in a room with him Day and night for him to detox. They wouldn’t have taken him away from London so he could get better.
Katherine was so different from every other vampire out there, she had made sure that he was the first thing she worried about. Maybe that made her an easy target but she didn’t care, there wasn’t going to be a day where he would have to be on his own without her.
She leaned her head back against the door behind her and watched him for a moment as he tried to explain that it felt like they were meeting over again, that even though they had drank together, lived together; for the last ten years they had been strangers. She had shut herself away from him. Keeping him at arms length just in case he touched her and saw what she had done. Just in case he got a glimpse into the very thing they never talked about.
Adrian spoke about wanting to do it right this time around. She looked up at his face for a moment, letting her dark eyes move over his skin and she chewed on her lip for a moment. “You don’t have to be gentle with me Adrian” she said softly. She had been tempted to say that she wouldn’t break but at the back of her mind she knew that she was already broken.
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Post by Ray on Dec 31, 2017 20:49:53 GMT -7
“It’s not about being gentle,” Adrian replies. He knows of all people, Katherine is the last who needs a soft guiding hand. She was a Queen in a war-torn country, a widow to a butchered man, a mother who had to leave her child behind. Adrian knows that, even though she’s hurting, she’ll ultimately survive as she has for centuries.
While Adrian... He hasn’t handled immortality well. He’s been reckless, angry, impulsive, all to a larger more destructive degree than he used to be when he was young and human. He wants to change that. He wants to be better than that. London proved him to the cost of his behavior and he can’t live like that anymore.
“All I’m trying to say is...” Adrian sighs out, lowering his chin and looking to the floor for inktober a second as he kneads a finger at his temple, “Is don’t apologize for a kiss.” He finally says, looking back up to her and giving her a small smile. “I kind of liked it.” He admits, shrugging his shoulder a little.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Dec 31, 2017 21:07:01 GMT -7
Katherine was getting a little confused on what all of this was actually about. The last thing she wanted was for them to end up having an awkward time while they were together because of one kiss that had happened when she was afraid. In honesty it still surprises her because of the fact that she hadn't kissed him in a very long time. They stopped sleeping together when Jon came back and then everything happened and she barely could open up to Adrian so she didn't want him to think that she was having a breakdown because of the fact she was acting strange.
He then told her not to apologise for the kiss because of the fact that he liked it, she smiled and looked down at the ground. "Oh you did" she said softly and scratched the back of her head gently before bringing her brown eyes up to look at him once more.
"Who knows maybe we could try it again, only this time less crying, less fear and maybe a bit more pressure of lips" she shrugged up a shoulder slightly before chewing on her lip. Katherine highly doubted that it would be anything special, maybe a few nights when they needed some company and didn't want to look elsewhere for it. She knew that he couldn't separate sex and feeding and with her he didn't have too. It didn't matter if he hurt her because she would heal, it wouldn't matter if they were using each other.
Maybe the two of them needed some sex to loosen them up a little bit and maybe they could find some comfort in each other for a while.
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Post by Ray on Jan 1, 2018 22:18:11 GMT -7
"Maybe." Adrian replies at first, teasingly, not expecting much more than a roll of her eyes and a slap on the arm for saying so. But that's not what he gets at all.
He watches her, a little taken aback by the flirty reply that follows, a reply he hadn't anticipated, a reply that reminds him of how they were before all of this. And yet not at all. Those kisses, those nights, had been emotionless -- the scratching of an itch -- born out of very little talking and a little too much influence from the home of iniquity she had built around them. But this. This is different. There's a shyness in both of them, a timid dance of words around the tension that seems to have been magnified between them in the last twelve hours, a slow blur of the wide line that separated them for so long.
An invitation.
Adrian smiles a little around the edges, looking down to his feet for a breath as he wets his lips, before his eyes return to skim over her face -- lingering upon her eyes, lingering upon her lips.
In a moment of not so rare impulse, he shifts forward and ducks his head low to catch her mouth in a kiss, soft and slow.
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