(BSF) When and where, I'll be there

[the_death_card]

This is Jack in the suite, sitting in the floor in front of his usual spot on the couch, a game of cards spread out on the coffee table in front of him. He's just chilling at the moment, having come back in from eating, and he looks up at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, offering a nod of greeting before he moves another card in his game.

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[onebehind]

Despite how hard he's trying to keep a handle on it (and perhaps why Jack didn't feel it sooner), as Dylan descends the stairs, his sense of -- something is near palpable. It's hard to tell what, exactly, he's feeling, one emotion layered on another, layered on another, but it's not a happy feeling. Which probably explains why, despite the fact that none of that feeling is directed at him, rather than give Jack a worded answer, he simply grunts on his way towards the kitchen.

[the_death_card]

Jack stops, tilting his head to the side to watch Dylan head for the kitchen. For a moment, he pokes at the feeling he's getting from him - and then sets his cards aside to get to his feet and move to stand in the kitchen doorway. "You okay?"

[onebehind]

"I'm ... " Dylan starts, stops, shaking his head. Everything he's feeling surging forward for a moment before it ebbs.

He's worried about Daniel. He knows that they have time, that Daniel's still young, and that if they wait another few months or few years, it's not going to hurt anything, but he's worried that he'll never decide he's ready to let him turn him. He's worried that, if he does it without him being mentally prepared, it'll break him, somehow. He's worried what'll happen if he keeps feeding him his blood without turning him, which he started doing to kind of cut down on the culture shock when he does finally turn him. He's not entirely sure, but he's pretty sure this is how you get dhampir or whatever mortals are calling half-vampires in pop culture, now. He's pretty sure some of the side effects of vampire blood, like the heightened sense, are starting to linger in Daniel, now.

He's annoyed with Daniel. This shouldn't even be a thing, now. He should be his, already, dead already. It's not that hard, dying, he wouldn't even know what hit him, and then he wouldn't have to worry about death. If he could just stop worrying about his mortality for five minutes, he wouldn't have to worry about his mortality. It should be an easy choice.

And so on and so forth. What he ends with, however, is, " ... I'm gonna murder Daniel."

[the_death_card]

Jack snorts at the reply, at Dylan's choice of words, but there's not a lot of humor behind it considering everything else he got through their connection. "I think we all wanna murder Daniel sometimes," he returns, joking, though he knows it falls flat as he says it. He just couldn't not make the joke.

"You talked to him about, y'know..." Actually doing the thing?

[onebehind]

Dylan makes a face at him -- then another, sour in a different way, as he continues. A huff of a breath follows and he shakes his head again. "Kind of?"

Not really. Every time he starts to broach the subject with Daniel, his fear levels ratchet up to a thousand, and he backs off. Much as he thinks it's ridiculous Daniel is so worried about his mortality, all things considered, he wants to respect that, respect him. He knows he's going to have to give it up, sooner rather than later, for both their sakes.

[the_death_card]

Jack makes a face back at him - though it fades when he answers. "It's Danny. Pretty sure he's gotta be freaking out about something all the time. It's just this at the moment."

[onebehind]

"Yeah, well. You try telling him that," Dylan answers on the heel of a snort.

Jack's not wrong about Daniel being a hot mess more often than not, but -- well, maybe if Jack tells him to calm his tits, it'll help. Jack's been through what Dylan wants to put Daniel through and lived to tell the tale. He's a peer, rather than the guy trying to herd him into letting him kill him. And so on and so forth. If nothing else, it can't hurt, at least. Daniel will either calm down or he won't, and if he doesn't, he won't be losing any ground, at least.

[the_death_card]

Jack nods and shrugs all at once. "Yeah, I can do that. I mean, I can try?"

He doesn't know if it'll help or not, considering this is Daniel they're talking about, but, well. Like Dylan didn't say, maybe it'll make a difference that it's Jack instead of the older vampires that have been dealing with this for so much longer.

[onebehind]

"Please?" Dylan decides, waving a hand back towards the stairs. Again, it can't hurt, and -- well, he's probably going to murder Daniel, one way or another, tonight, to be perfectly honest, so he can't say that it'll at least stop him from killing Daniel.

[the_death_card]

"Sure," Jack agrees, pushing away from the kitchen door. "I'll be back."

He turns away from the kitchen, heading for the stairs to jog up them, heading for Daniel's room. He knocks lightly. "Hey, Danny?"

[the_lovers]

Muttering a thank you, Dylan gets himself a bag of blood out of the refrigerator and tries to -- at least pretend he's not listening in. Daniel, meanwhile, calls a yeah< hold on from somewhere deeper in his room. When the door opens a second or two later, he looks vaguely baffled. Mostly because the Horsemen generally know better to bother him when he's closed off in his room.

"What's up?" he asks, despite that, because of it.

[the_death_card]

"Sorry," Jack says immediately, because yes, he does know not to bother Daniel unless it's something important - but, well. This is more than a little important. "You got a minute?"

[the_lovers]

"Yeah, sure," he allows, stepping backwards out of the door to gesture Jack inside. Despite his outward confidence, the whole step into my office act, however, he smells like curiosity and, perhaps, a touch of fear. He may not have Dylan's hearing, but he's not deaf, either, and his hearing's only gotten better, since he's been drinking Dylan's blood. He can hazard a guess what's so important that Jack had to talk to him -- or at least that it's not something that's going to thrill him.

[the_death_card]

Jack steps inside at the invitation, moving to sit down in the chair in Daniel's room, doing his best not to loom and to let Daniel keep control of the room. "So, uh. Obviously me and Jacob were talking," he begins, because there's no way he didn't hear that part, at least.

"You know he was, like... kinda waiting until I'd gotten settled with stuff to get to you guys, but he's thinking it's time for somebody else to get a turn."

He's not sure of a better way to put that that isn't to say outright that Dylan's ready himself to turn someone, whether or not they're ready.

[the_lovers]

"Me," Daniel continues, as if he's finishing Jack's sentence rather than starting one of his own. "Turn me. He wants to turn me. Right, okay."

The curiosity has been replaced solely by nerves, at this point, still terrified of dying. He knows that it's an inevitability, whether he lets Dylan turn him or not, but he can't shake the fear. Blame -- well, he's not sure where that fear came from, really, but it's one of his deepest ones.

[the_death_card]

"I mean, you're kind of our other leader?" Jack adds, hoping catering to Daniel's ego might actually help in this regard. "Pretty sure the only reason he went with me first instead of you is because I already knew so many vampires."

Jack's had his share of culture shock to deal with since Dylan turned him, yeah, but he knew a lot of vampires on the street and had let Merritt feed on him during their year of set-up. He had the most experience with that side of it.

"But, uh." He turns more serious, more earnest. "It'll be okay, man. It's a lot bigger deal thinking about it than actually going through with it, I promise."

[the_lovers]

"Play to my ego, nice," Daniel mutters, apparently catching onto the fact that Jack's trying to manipulate him. Despite that, though, he seems willing to let it go there, deflating with a breath out. He reaches up to rake a hand through his hair. "Just -- just look at me and tell me, seriously, that it doesn't hurt."

Maybe it's not death he's afraid of, maybe it's pain, or violence, perpetrated at the hands of men he's supposed to be able to trust. (Thanks, Dad.) It's hard to tell, really, and again, even he's not entirely sure.

[the_death_card]

Jack gives a helpless sort of shrug at that - he tried. He sits back a little when Daniel speaks - and then shifts again to lean forward, meeting Daniel's gaze. "It doesn't hurt," he says seriously, and he means it. "I didn't even know it had happened until I woke up. And then, it's awesome, man."

Jack knows the feeling about having dealt with abusers. Where Daniel's nervous about it, though, Jack had been more than ready to get it over with before he got too worried about it to do it.

[the_lovers]

"Yeah, I'm kind of ... " Getting that, again with the effects of Dylan's blood starting to linger beyond the usual length of the high. He's not sure he should admit that, however, for any number of reasons, and so he lets it go with a vague gesture, and another heavy exhale. "But okay. Okay, tell him I'll be down in, I don't know, like, ten minutes."

And then they can do this. He just needs to take a few minutes and try and turn off the nerves, like right before going on stage.

[the_death_card]

Jack pauses a beat, a little surprised Daniel actually gave in that quickly, and then nods. "Yeah, okay." He gets back to his feet, starting to leave - and then turns back. "You, uh. You want me to hang around?"

He'll understand if Daniel doesn't want an audience this one time, but he also wants to make the offer.

[the_lovers]

"Uh," Daniel drawls, having to take a moment, think about that, the question one he wasn't really expecting. In the end, he shrugs. It's not really Jack watching his murder he's worried about, it's just about everything else. Maybe it'll help, somehow, having him there. "Yeah, sure, why not?"

[the_death_card]

Jack nods. "Okay. I'll be downstairs," he promises, and then he does turn to leave the room, heading back downstairs to the living room and Dylan.

[the_lovers]

"Okay," Daniel echoes.

That said, he waits for Jack to leave, for him to hear him on the stairs, before he goes for the deck of cards sitting on his desk. Unsheathing it, he runs through a handful of cuts and flourishes, eyes closed, trying to let the repetition draw him into something meditative, calming. Despite Jack's assurances, he's still nervous, you see, and going through the motions like this has always helped, if and when the odd bout of stage fright hits, right before a show.

He's a few minutes in when he realizes it's doing all of jack shit, this time around, however, if anything only serving to make him more paranoid, and so he stops, frustrated, and drops the deck back on his desk. He drums his fingers on his thigh, instead, the gesture wound up and thoughtful, both, and then ducks out of his room, headed for Merritt's. His intent is to ask for some kind of mental Valium, to help, but by the time he's knocked on his door, he already hates the idea, hates himself. Dylan, he thinks, will think less of him for this, if he actually does it, and fuck, he should just be able to commit already. He won't be dead for long, then he won't have to worry about dying or violence at all, more or less, and -- fuck. He can hear Merritt approaching the door.

Closing his eyes briefly, tightly, he huffs out a breath and scrambles for an excuse.

[the_hermit]

Merritt pulls the door open a moment later, pausing a beat. It's not hard to get a read on Daniel when his emotions aren't running this high, and the fact that he can feel Dylan's tension through their connection doesn't hurt, either.

"Just get it over with. It doesn't hurt," he promises and echoes.

[the_lovers]

"Yeah, okay, I'm sorry," Daniel starts, rolling his eyes. He may or may not at least feel guilty, later, for being a dick; right now, it's a defense mechanism to go with how anxious he is. "How long have you been dead?"

Which is to say he doubts Merritt remembers what it feels like.