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 Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 7:50 pm
Calder flicked his tail, trotting down the hallway to the drab door of the paperwork incubi. It was one he made a few times before, but not with the same purpose as now. Lines had been crossed, exchanges made, and certain unwanted goods were given to receiving parties. All technicalities aside, Zar bumped pretties against his boilfriend, and details had to be ironed out on the matter. Details Calder felt were very important.
At his door, he knocked three times, set a hand on his hip, and tapped a hoof.
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Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 8:06 pm
Unsurprisingly, when Calder came to call at his dormitory that day Zar was at home. Since speaking to his father and clarifying certain pivotal issues regarding his employment, he'd found himself with a great deal more free time and almost one hundred percent less paperwork. When the kelpie knocked at his door, he was napping - coiled up in a tangled ball of tail and wings - on his bed. It took him a short time to stir, uncurl and tidy himself up appropriately, after all, one never knew who might turn up.
After a few moments, an elegant claw came into view and the door opened. Zar was dressed almost exclusively in clothing borrowed from Barth. With not a single seed to his name after his ostracism from his family, he'd been forced to borrow what he could to get by to keep up appearances. The shirt was far too ruffly and luxuriant for the sharp featured Incubus and looked entirely out of place compared to the sharp lines of the suits which formerly were all that he wore.
When he spotted Calder, something in his expression seemed to light up and he leaned casually against the doorframe, propping himself up with the thumb and palm of a no-longer tattered and distinctly bat-like wing.
"Greetings. Is there anything that I can aid you with?" he purred in a tone that was not business-like at all.
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Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 8:48 pm
Calder stood there a moment, not expecting what he saw. For one, Zar was dressed in color, but colors that Calder knew. When you eyeballed a crush for a few months, and then dressed and frantically undressed said boil once you were together, you started to know what his wardrobe consisted of, and he knew that shirt. The colors and design, and design and favoring lean to somber colors, all spoke Barth. Either Barth gave Zar the same exact shirt, or he gave up said shirt to Barth, and Calder would have much preferred if Barth had just spent the money and bought new clothes for Zar instead of giving his own to him. It had a direct tie to a sort of intimacy to be wearing the shirt of another boil, and if Calder has fur to ruffle, it would have been.
That didn't mean he looked all that bad. While suits were nice, the incubi had been too monotone already that color did help his features. Added to this was a more relaxed posse and a set of fuller wings. He looked better overall, but it was the tone and relaxed air that bothered him.
He was full of himself.
He stood, and crossed his arms. "We need to talk...." He continued to look at the shirt. He wanted it off him, but kept that desire to himself. "About you helping yourself to Barth." He continued. There was little Zar could do to "aid" him at the moment.
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Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 9:07 pm
Zar's tail curled behind him, arching and drawing sinuous loops in the air. He had been feeling surprisingly good to begin with, Calder's visit rendered him positively jolly. Enough to spare a small and neat smile for the other boil. "We do?" he said, raising a hand to his chest in effeminate shock. "I thought that we already did. I thought we agreed that you were very angry and that you would break my possessions a little and then leave."
His smile broadened, revealing the very tips of razor sharp fangs. "Did you have something else to add? If so, come in, though I should say in advance breaking more objects simply will not do."
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Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 9:37 pm
He just stared at the shirt, trying to figure how much it meant. As a demon, Zar should have had the money to buy his own suits. Why did he switch to these clothes? Why did Barth give him clothes instead of buying him new ones? Usually Barth dressed up those he really liked, as he liked to see those he loved in lavish dress, and it hurt to think he was no longer the only one. Christof had been given a few things, but not in the same way Calder had been, and now Zar.
It hurt, even though he was trying to not let it hurt.
Even though he and Barth had talked, he still couldn't help feeling the way he did, and added with his visit with Amrita, he didn't feel as confident or as cocky as before.
He felt low.
However, before Zar, he knew he couldn't be too weak. He had to be Lead.
"Don't. Don't do ....whatever this is." He said, waving at Zar and his mock surprise. It was annoying. He didn't need it.
He just stood there, crossing his arms again because it was the best way to keep them from doing anything. "Just talk. From looking at your outfit, if I did break anything, I'd just be breaking something of Barth's in the end." Or maybe Barth would buy him something prettier. He already felt that sort of determination to be here to get a better understanding on ranking and how this all worked dwindle away to a sort of sulking desire to just walk in the woods instead.
"I can stand out here if you feel better about it."
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Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 7:00 am
Zar raised a brow at Calder in polite puzzlement. "Do not do what precisely? I was being cordial my equine friend. After all, I am speaking to a friend, how else might I behave?" He didn't argue with Calder's estimation that breaking his things might end up with replacements courtesy of Barth, but at the same time nor did he mention that being forced to rely on Barth for anything was a needle to the pride every single time he was forced to do so, as a demon he should not be bound to anyone at all, reliance left the playing field off-balance.
He did however pick up on the hesitance in Calder, the softness in his words this time compared to the last coaxing him to greater interest.
The temptation to make him stand at the door as punishment for his hesitance was great, but he resisted. "It doesn't do to have one's business spoken for all of the dormitory to hear." he stepped aside with a butler-like bow. "Do come in, make yourself comfortable, and we can talk."
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Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 7:18 am
Business. When Zar said it, it tied back to this greater idea of what Barth had mentioned. Business. It had always seemed apart from personal before, but now he knew it meant everything to a demon, and it in turn affected so much of his life. Still, even he couldn't break his feelings for things as business, as for him, it always came off as something less intimate. Maybe in time, or at least in front of demons, he would use it, but now he could only tie it in a way to make them understand in the jargon they used because they barely knew his.
He walked in, not saying much, and moved to a couch that was in the living room. He didn't wander as he did before, inspecting couch cushions, or lounge at the desk. He just walked over to the couch and sat, turning his tail so he wouldn't sit on it.
He could have asked how his day was going, how things were, or when he started wearing Barth's shirts, but he either wasn't interested or didn't want to know. Pleasantries after his last visit didn't seem like it would matter. "Where does Barth rank up in your priorities? Are you going to be sticking around or is this a passing thing for now for you?" Zar had had time, he felt, to think about these things.
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Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 7:40 am
Zar closed the door behind them before turning to face Calder, watching the kelpie's every move with keen intensity - despite his indifference before, he really didn't want more possessions broken in a fit of pique. But instead the other boil politely sat down. No not polite, monsters didn't do polite he reminded himself mentally. Obedient.
He hadn't forgotten Calder calling him unattractive when he'd volunteered to help Barth and him on their artifact hunt. He rarely forgot anything, even when he wanted to.
The questions he was asked were invasive as far as he was concerned, one didn't ask a demon their game plan and expect to be handed honesty. "In my priorities? I couldn't say really, I don't see sexual relations as a bond in any way." Under the surface he knew how he felt, he was caught up, ensnared in Barth's plans whether he liked it or not, he'd been presented with temptation and the option to take it, and he had been too weak and vulnerable to say no. He wasn't leaving as long as Barth wanted him to stay. But to say that to Calder was to hand the hostile boil his weaknesses and vulnerabilities, traits he gave to no one.
"If it remains entertaining, I will stick around, if it does not then I will go do something else most likely." He gave a look over the rim of his glasses. "What exactly are you afraid of?"
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Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 7:48 am
He listened, absorbed the same tone and speech that demons used, and sorted it like a second language into one he understood. All the frills and lace of demon speak was really exhausting in the end, and he was finding it more tiring through the days.
"I'm afraid that you're use for him could make put his own safety on the sidelines when it should be your chief concern. Demons use others for personal gain. I don't know how you exactly want to use him, and I don't know you enough to know if you would put your interest before his welfare. I don't want you hurting him." He wasn't hiding anything on this part. He would tear anyone apart that hurt Barth.
"I also would like to know how serious you are. If he's just a passing thing for you, then I don't have to take this seriously if you are just going to get bored and move on. If not, then you are going to be in his life for a while, and that's why we need to talk and sort things out. I'm not just dating Barth. We're going to live together, and I plan on having scarlings with him. A future. I would like to know if this was going to be a long term thing, if you'd be moving into whatever castle we find." He glanced around a moment, wondering if he could spot any more of Barth's things or anything that Barth might have ordered that showed signs of the sloth demon's sense of style.
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Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 8:09 am
"I think that you will find that Barth is entirely capable of looking out for himself. If you think that I could simply walk in and use him in any fashion at all without some form of consent on his part then I should have to say that you are a very naive individual indeed." He flicked an ear and looked away from Calder across the room in the direction of the chair at his desk - the one Calder broke last time he was in Zar's dorm - now a far plusher and more comfortable replacement. "He is aware of what he is dealing with in me, you do not need to worry yourself about that."
As Calder went on to speak about the future he had in mind with Barth, Zar was almost scandalised by the frank openness of the words, it was more than he'd wanted to be subjected to, emotions and feelings stirring in him that he was never comfortable to deal with. Future. The very word itself inspired deep feelings of dread and despair in him. There had been a time he had no future at all, simply a vague wish that at some point everything would cease. Scarlings were too far into the realm of imagination for him to ever be able to place himself in even the same sentence as them. Failure bred failure, therefore that would be all he would ever breed. Calder could have that future, he had no intention or ability to fight him for it.
"As for your questions, I would say that I am not the individual you should be presenting them to. If I am permitted to inhabit whatever future that he and you have planned together, it will not be because I assert myself there."
He folded his arms, looking back to the kelpie. "Incubi are opportunistic predators, if chance presents itself, we are almost powerless but to take it. But we are no Sins. We do not machinate in the same fashion, we specialise, and more often than not when not dealing with humans. We serve."
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Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 8:43 am
"I know he's capable of taking care of himself. That doesn't stop me from worrying for him, and even he can't predict what will emotionally hurt him. No one is that invulnerable no matter how cold they act. Even if someone consents, emotions are tied in even when you mess around and you say it's just a fling. You don't have that sort of fun and don't feel nothing at all, and you don't feel nothing after. So don't call me naive on that matter. I know Barth longer than you so don't treat me as if I just met him yesterday and don't have any sense in his behavior and feelings." He said, his voice turning sharp in the end. To say he was naive in regards to Barth was just not something he liked being accused of.
He took a breath, and returned to the matter at hand. "You say a lot of us making that decision for your future, but you don't say much on what you want. You say what incubies do normally as their species, but when you talked with me before - before all this, you said you weren't exactly like other incubis anyways. I don't care what incubies do or want as a whole when I'm talking. I want to know what THIS incubi wants. What do you want, Zar? Do you want to be in Barth's future if he will allow it or are you still deciding and need time?" He had to know because if Zar was to be in Barth's future, he would be in Calder's future.
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Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 1:31 pm
Zar gave Calder that same very patient and unreadable look he'd been maintaining the entire conversation. He found it amusing to be told that there was no way to fool around and have no strong feelings after. As an incubus, relations tended to be like making a sandwich, a natural prelude to feeding. Barth was an exception for other myriad reasons, but the act of sleeping with him was not the crux point of the matter. Trying to explain it was beyond him. "I treat you as you warrant and earn in my eyes. You say he is emotionally vulnerable, in my experience that is not true, he has very firm control of his emotions and no tactics I am capable of could wound them. We can agree to disagree on this matter and though I concede to your claim that you have known him longer chronologically than I have, I do not concede that makes you a better judge of character."
Moving to sit on the chair opposite Calder, he clasped his hands in his lap. "As for what I want. I want nothing. I have learned to neither want nor expect anything from anyone."
His tail stopped flicking and lay still on the floor at his feet. "You speak of a future you envision for yourself. If you wish to know how I feel you must first understand that for me there is no future at all, when I try to apply what limited imagination I possess to a point even as near as tomorrow, I see nothing but a vast and hollow blackness. The only certainty in my future is that someday there will be nothing more for me."
Tilting his head slightly. "So you must try to understand that is almost impossible for me to want anything when I long ago relinquished anything as futile as hope. Hope is the bastion of those with imaginations. I will do what Barth entraps me to do or what I entrap him into doing, what is in my nature to do."
He shrugged. "But I will not hope, or want. Because those things belong to other people."
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Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 4:42 pm
" I don't think I will ever understand Barth 100%, but the way you are talking is that I don't know him at all. Even more, you are phrasing it like you know him more than me and I don't like it." He said, his tail flicking in agitation. His ears continued to turn back from agitation but rise to listen when Zar spoke. He came to talk, but it seemed Zar was making some point that he knew Barth in one romp then Calder did in all his time with him. It was something that made him pissed and at the same time hurt him. Calder always feared that he would loose Barth in one way or another, be it hunters or Barth leaving him. To say that Calder didn't know Barth touched on a deep feel that Barth would leave him for a demon. Someone like Lilith....Siddie....Zar.
When Zar calmly stated he had no imagination for a future, Calder's own worry about his future was then replaced with a sadness at what he heard. "That has to be one of the saddest things I've ever heard. Everyone is entitled to their hope for the future, and to not have a hope, a goal in mind just means you are running into a forest blind and are just waiting to run off a cliff. Even you can muster the imagination to hope for something in the future other than death. Not wanting anything at all is just...really sad." Zar might have been a bother now at the moment, but regardless if how Calder felt about anyone, everyone deserved to hope for the future. "I knew you room wasn't filled with color, but to even say your future lacked it is just depressing. You don't want anything?" He found that hard to believe. "Not even ONE scarling of your own?"
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Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 4:54 pm
"I am not saying that I know him more than you, I wouldn't make such a committed comparative statement, you no doubt know a great deal more about Barth than I do, but that does not mean it is not possible for you to be logically flawed in certain places." he shook his head. "There is a great deal I do not know."
Zar didn't even begin to understand why it was sad that he had no prospects of a future, he didn't lament the state of affairs, it simply was. The only thing that made him feel a wistful sort of regret was that he knew that it was this intrinsic lack of future planning, imagination and ambition which ultimately made him a useless investment to his father. He gave Calder a very puzzled look. "Why in the world should I want a scarling? My mother and father created me as a business investment, an individual to carry on their collective legacy. I fulfilled none of their requirements or hopes, there is no reason at all that I should pass along what are fundamentally defective traits. It does not make sense."
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Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 8:36 pm
He seemed even more alarmed than before, and shook his head as if Zar was getting it all wrong - which he was. "You don't have defective traits. You are living and surviving, and while you might not have met your parent's expectations, that does not make you a failure undeserving to create life and have a scarling of your own. Your parents had their own reasons to have you, and while you might not have been what they expected, that doesn't mean that you overall are a failure. To another person's standards, you are a success. You are alive, in school, and you banged one of the hottest demons in school." Even if Calder was a bit biased on that opinion.
"If people did not have scarlings due to worrying about future expectations, then no one would succeed. You can't predict what a scarling will grow up to be. All you can do is nuture and love them, and hope for the best whatever the outcome. They are not a set plan, and that's the magic in them. They are living creatures that you helped create and you helped build. They aren't meant to be perfect. That's the joy in them. They become their own person, just as you become that person, but as a parent, you can help in that process and be there for all their cute little steps and know you helped bring that into life to share with the world. You made it possible. Even if your parents did it for business, you are still here in the end to do and be whatever you want regardless of expectations."
To which Calder, in his heartfelt speech, leaned back with a very soft smile. It wasn't that of hatred, mockery, or some even intend. It was someone swept away in their own fantasies. "I'm going to have 8. Ya know. To start." He said, already having the names pretty much down. "You should have some too."
He looked up. "Can you imagine it?" He said, and after a short pause, looked over. "Well. Can you?"
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