一期一会 » MEETING ONCE IN A LIFETIME

[stormbelow]

He didn't stay in the nexus after the encounter left him all tense and anxious, two sensations he'd pretty much been hoping to avoid for at least a little while longer while he got things back to normal. He didn't even bother finishing the rest of his errands; there was no time for that.

Instead, he goes straight back home. The second he sets foot in the house, he senses around for Harvestman's presence, hoping like hell that he won't have to track him down anywhere else.

"John?"

Comments

[stormbelow]

"Stop rubbing your eyes, don't think I don't see you doing that."

[fuckvampires]

He hisses, dropping his hands. "So you're not gonna care except when you care?"

[stormbelow]

"When did I ever say I wasn't going to care?"

[fuckvampires]

He can't push at his eyes anymore or punch holes in things, despite the temptation. He leans against a wall and sighs, bracing his face against his hands. "This is stupid."

[stormbelow]

Arashi doesn't answer that, just watches him with a frown.

[fuckvampires]

"I hate doing this, Arashi. I hate it. I hate fighting with you." His gaze wonders, and he sighs. "It ain't helping."

[stormbelow]

He starts to answer, but abruptly thinks better of it and covers his eyes with his hands instead. After a few seconds of visibly gathering his temper backward and already feeling the migraine beginning to build for his troubles, he lifts his eyes to Harvestman again with a very heavy sigh.

"All right. What do you want me to do?"

[fuckvampires]

Harvestman lifts his hands a few times, only to drop them in frustration. He stares at the floor for a moment, then the ceiling. Finally, he lowers his head to meet Arashi's eyes.

"I swore I wouldn't get into fights with you, if you came back. I swore to every goddamn god I don't believe in, if you came back I'd do a lot of things. I wouldn't fight with you. I'd stop sleeping around. I'd do - fuck."

He folds his arms tight, gaze drifting back to the floor. "I gotta talk to Gabriel anyhow. You can come. I'd like you to come, but you don't gotta."

[stormbelow]

"Why would you swear that?" There is really just blatant disbelief in Arashi's voice, not derision but legitimate confusion. Frankly both of the things mentioned still seem like they're beyond Harvestman's capabilities, and it's not as though they've fought to actual fury in any recent months. Just doesn't seem worth the guilt.

"I'll come. Am I allowed to punch him? I want to punch him, because this need-to-know mysterious melodramatic bullshit that your hunters have going on is really pissing me off."

[fuckvampires]

The disbelief is returned in the look Harvestman gives him. "You were gone. You were gone and I thought you weren't coming back. I thought you were gonna end up like Leander."

No. The squeeze in his chest made him flinch, turning away. It was better when he didn't think about Leander. That would be easier if Leander wasn't the focus of his nightmares lately. He focuses, instead, on the question.

"No. Gabe ain't able to shift like other Weres, so punching would hurt him."

[stormbelow]

Arashi frowns again, but chooses not to answer either one of those things. The courtesy he offers Harvestman in not mentioning Leander is one he hopes will consistently be repaid by never mentioning anything of what Harvestman saw in his memories, ever.

"When do we leave?"

[fuckvampires]

"Give me an hour." There's a definite swear he's leaving off the end of that sentence, although he chooses to focus on pulling out his phone and shooting off a badly spelled text.

[stormbelow]

With a cursory nod, Arashi gets up and goes back into the kitchen to find the nearest bottle of blood that has alcohol in. He's only going to have one glass, but at the moment he really feels like he needs it.

[fuckvampires]

Harvestman takes his time. Not out of spite; 'an hour' was not a reasonable amount of time to arrange a meeting with someone as busy as Gabriel. That would be true even if his heart was into it.

It's roughly thirty minutes when he enters the kitchen. "You're not gonna like where, but he's available in fifteen minutes."

[stormbelow]

Arashi deliberately sets his glass down and narrows his eyes suspiciously at Harvestman. Okay, so, one glass had turned into two. And a half. He's going to stop now, though.

"Where?"

[fuckvampires]

Harvestman would be fine with that if there wasn't alcohol in it. (There was probably alcohol in it.)

"HQ."

[stormbelow]

There is a lot of alcohol in it.

"No."

Arashi's answer is sharp and immediate. He looks at Harvestman as if this is some kind of joke that's landed not just wide of the mark, but on an entirely different planet. As if he's honestly suggesting they walk directly into a nest of hunters run by the one person that Arashi has specifically asked Harvestman to avoid.

[fuckvampires]

"It's the safest place they have." His voice is gentle, because he knows exactly what Arashi is feeling. If he hadn't been there before, multiple times, his reaction would be the same. "And it ain't what you think. Brisbane's group is a network organization - there's very few people at their HQ at any one time, and I know them all."

[stormbelow]

"Do you trust them all? How much surveillance equipment do they have? How much of that building itself could kill or detain either one of us if for some reason this happens to be a very poorly concealed trap? How many of these people would immediately send a message to Brisbane to let him know that you are there or had been there?"

[fuckvampires]

Harvestman looks away. That should answer all of Arashi's questions.

[stormbelow]

"Once again: no." He throws back the glass and drains the rest of it. "Emphatically no."

[fuckvampires]

"What alternative would you suggest? That he come here?"

[stormbelow]

"No hunters in the house," Arashi says, the same way he might have told Harvestman to get his shoes off the furniture, if that was something he'd ever bothered to say. "There has to be more neutral territory than his headquarters, John. And frankly, he would be safer on this side of the doors than we would be on that one."

[fuckvampires]

"Anywhere that's not hunter territory for me over there is fucked, Arashi. Even going to Chinatown was risky, and someone spotted me while we were doing it. I can't... I can't go back. Someone who fucks hunters is dead walking." He sighs again, running a hand through his hair. "I can ask, Arashi, but you gotta understand. Safety ain't an option for me. It never was."

[stormbelow]

"All of that would be the best reason for you to argue him into meeting us somewhere else." He folds his arms. "Not here in my home, but in the nexus, even, or in this world -- where no one knows who he is, and no one would think to look for him."