Asher Rose (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
abeautifulnightmare) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
noirenewyork2014-01-10 11:54 pm
abeautifulnightmare) wrote in noirenewyork2014-01-10 11:54 pm
"No light, no light, in your bright blue eyes. I never knew daylight could be so violent."
Who: Asher Rose and Jenna Greene
What: Hunting for vital information
Where: Jenna's apartment
When: Thursday evening
Asher stepped out of the bathroom cubicle at The Plaza Hotel, gently dabbing at the corner of his lips with a black handkerchief that he slipped into the pocket of his long leather coat over his pristine personally designed outfit. He paused only long enough to check his reflection in the large, ornate mirrors, making sure his appearance was anything but pristine and then he swept purposefully out of the men's room to leave the hotel into the busy New York night once more. He wasn't quite as satisfied as he should have been, but it would do for now. Right now, any sustenance he isolated for himself was just like a band-aid fix and it only increased his desire for that one taste he couldn't have. It was eating him up inside, and he knew it. It was consuming him, and he was letting it. He couldn't go on like this.
Which is why he did something he probably wouldn't have done if he hadn't run into Jill, an old face from back home who had dropped some vital pieces of information, in a bar. He walked the lengthy blocks to the apartment block that was his target, clearly now having no concern for his safety as he dipped and wove through some darkened alleys. It would be a big mistake for anyone to attempt to harm him anyway, and it wouldn't be the first time anyway. He stood at the door now of the one person he had known to be in New York all along and had avoided ever since. Asher cut himself off from just about everyone after Brodie broke up with him, and it probably didn't help his downward spiral that lead to, well, his death, so to speak. That was part of the reason he hadn't completely lost it with Eric and Logan. He had taken his own life, and they saved him. He just still wasn't entirely sure he wanted any of this, and it could compound when he got over-emotional or lacked appropriate sustenance. But if they wanted to keep putting themselves in his presence, they were just going to have to deal with it. Nothing like a bitchy vampire on your backs, that was for sure.
Asher waited, blue eyes scanning the perimeter of the hallway on the floor of the apartment. It was quiet. That was good. He didn't like it when unfamiliar places got too loud on him. But as soon as Jenna answered the door, he gave her a veiled smile, tilting his head a little at her. "Hello, darling. Miss me?" he greeted her calmly.
It had been a seriously long day, and honestly, Jenna was exhausted. Her heart for this City wasn't what it used to be after the accident that may or may not have killed her fag. A darkness had well and truly fallen over Jenna's life. She remained the shrewd, Columbia educated businesswoman that she always had been, and as far as her family and "friends" knew, she was just fine. But the truth was that, since losing Asher (whether to death or disappearance), Jenna had dealt with a very difficult level of depression. She'd been in counseling, trying to get her life back on track, and while it had worked very well, there were still days when it shook her to her core that Asher wasn't there, and no one truly could tell her where he was or if he was even still alive. She'd had a good week this week, but on this particular night, after a tough day at work, and a coworker going on about her new Asheresque bag and the oft-repeated tale of how Asher had died, leaving books of designs behind that his company were still developing in his absence (pure fabrication, when it was actually Asher himself still designing), Jenna had come home to her Tribeca apartment, and poured herself a glass of the most expensive cabernet she owned.
On days like this, Jenna usually found herself dragging out her box set of The Tudors, watching Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and trying to focus on the perfection that was the TV version of Henry VIII's body instead of the heartbreak that she still felt over the loss of her friend. The cabernet was finally beginning to relax her when she heard the buzzer from her apartment door. Setting the wineglass on the coffee table, Jenna stood up and went to the door. When she opened it, she was relatively sure that there was something more than alcohol in her wine. Just like that, Asher Rose was standing right in front of her, looking like absolute sex on legs, speaking from a purely former fag hag place in Jenna's heart. Asher had always been a beautiful and impeccably dressed man, but this was beyond what she even remembered, and she just stood their for a moment, her mouth hanging open. Stammering over an attempt at words, she finally managed, "A... Asher."
"You're looking fabulous, darling," Asher offered, even if his bright blue eyes never left being locked on hers. "Aren't you going to invite me in?" He honestly didn't know anything of where his friends were or where they had ended up. With his rapid rise to success, he really had let the whole thing to go to his head. He was caught up in the shiny realm of money and celebrity, but success came at a price, just like everyone said it would. He even lost contact with his parents when all his promises to keep in touch went by the wayside. He had always had something more important to do than give time to the people he loved. He lost his relationship, he lost Brodie, and he never managed to find his footing again. He regretted the whole thing, he regretted that he let himself turn into one of those celebrity assholes, and he paid the worst price. It was sheer loss, and emptiness, and loneliness that got him into all this mess to start with.
Once he realised what he had become, though, he always swore he wouldn't use his friends as a source of sustenance. He wouldn't hunt them down to indulge just because they were familiar and easy for him. There was one exception to that rule, of course. That was sheer and desperate need more than anything, but he wasn't here to use Jenna as a meal. As beautiful as she was, Asher solely fed on beautiful young males. He had tried a female one, but he ended up nearly tearing her to bits because the undercurrent of passion and appreciation of her physically was missing. She was just a meal, and luckily Logan had intercepted him in a frenzy before he did too much damage. Jenna was always just his fag hag, his best friend. It was no secret he had always been as gay as a rainbow flag at a pride march. He was here for a reason, but it wasn't to hurt her. "Better late than never, yes?"
"I... I could say the same about you," Jenna replied when she found her voice again. If this was a dream, it was a really fucking realistic one, and she was pretty sure she couldn't even dream into being the outfit that Asher was wearing. It was too gorgeous, and too perfectly suited to Asher. Her mind couldn't make that up, subconscious or no, and she was still staring at him when he asked if she was going to invite him in. "Of... of course," she said, although part of her had the feeling she was inviting a ghost into her apartment. Asher was dead. But he obviously wasn't, and here he was, sassy gay bitch as always, and she couldn't deny that she was relieved to see him.
She wanted to hug him and scream with excitement that he was alive, but there was something in his demeanor that restrained her. There was something... separate about Asher. He wasn't the warm, loving fag/BFF she remembered and missed every single day. There was a distance between them, and it didn't just seem like time. Asher was distant, not quite cold, but definitely not warm. Unable to hide her confusion, Jenna nodded numbly. "Asher... It's not that I'm not thrilled to see you, because I am, but... I kind of feel like I'm seeing dead people. Where the hell have you been? You just... Let us think you were dead! Do you have any idea how much I missed you?" And suddenly there was a strong urge to cry that Jenna was fighting with everything she had. How could he do this to them? Let them think he was dead, but with no body, no funeral, no chance to get the closure they needed and say goodbye. Why couldn't he have told her that she was okay?
Asher gave a light laugh as he sauntered into her apartment. "Dead people, darling? Do I look dead?" And he was pretty much just going to leave it at that. Yes. Yes, he had quite a distinct notion of how much people missed him. He had been at his own memorial service and had to keep his distance because being a new Kindred, he had been uncontrollably tapping into everyone's emotions that led him to aggravation when he couldn't feel Brodie's, which had been the only reason he had been there in the first place. Being blocked from that by everyone else's onslaught of grieving feelings had the avenue of setting him off, and he really hadn't wanted to start sinking fang into random people at his funeral. That would have been extremely unclassy.
He waited for a moment in silence so she could actually absorb his presence, see that he wasn't, in fact, dead... at least, not on the face of it. If she got too close and too observant, she would be able to tell he wasn't breathing. There was many, many reasons Asher didn't let people, especially humans, close to him, and that was one of them. "On the contrary, darling, no one tried to contact me. How was I supposed to know anyone cared? People thought I had my head up my ass for so long, they didn't want to deal with me." Guilt-tripping, it was his only real tool to keep control here or he would start to get upset, and how the fuck would be explain tears of blood to her? He had to keep a stoic distance until he had a better control on his emotions. He just didn't know how he could manage any of that without Brodie. Brodie wasn't physically with him, but he still consumed him every minute of every day. Asher was hovering on a precipice now of deciding to find Brodie and draw him into his world, or ending his Kindred life once and for all. There was no grey area for Asher. "I was abroad when the whole mess occurred. And maybe I was little bit mad at you all for burying me prematurely. And by bury, I mean, honour my life in a memorial service sans casket, because clearly... I'm not ready to be in one of those," he said, giving a light wave of his hand up and down his torso for emphasis.
Jenna had to admit that Asher definitely didn't look dead. To the contrary, he looked fantastic. Still as slender as ever, his clothing perfect, his hair immaculate. He was gorgeous, just as he always had been. "No," she finally said, verbalizing the thoughts in her mind in the most simple of ways. "You don't look dead at all. You look... every bit the same fabulous Asher you've always been." Still, Jenna hadn't seen Asher in a long time, but that didn't mean that she didn't recognize that something was different. But she couldn't quite put a finger on what, and that bothered her far more deeply than she wanted to admit to.
She paused, meeting Asher's gaze as she tried to come up with a decent answer to that, but in all honesty, there really wasn't one. And the fact was, yes. She'd been hurt by Asher, and yes, she had forced herself not to care anymore, or at least to pretend, because he'd hurt her so much. But still, his death had broken her heart. Or... his supposed death, because clearly death wasn't really the case. "I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. "I just... I can't believe you're... you're here, and alive. Asher... Honey, I'm so happy to see you... I'm sorry if it seems like I'm not, but I'm still kind of in shock." And if there was any question of that, it was pretty clear when she kept looking at him, as if not quite sure he wouldn't fade into thin air.
Asher's senses piqued with familiar scents, but he wasn't detecting anything remotely resembling what he was looking for. Brodie hadn't been here recently, or probably even at all. If he had, Asher would have picked up on it by now. His eyes swept over the interior of her apartment, but it wasn't the décor he was analysing by any means. The old Asher probably would have commented, probably even one of the first things out of his mouth, but who he was now had a very, very different set of priorities. A different set of needs and wants. At least it was comforting for him to know Jenna wasn't his taste. It afforded him some safety with her that he wouldn't lose control, and that was a security blanket he needed at the moment.
He eventually turned in a full circle on the spot, slowly and purposefully, so he was once again looking to Jenna. He shook his head slowly. "I didn't let anyone think I was dead, darling. They believed what they liked. They let themselves. Maybe it was easier to deal with a corpse than an asshole who cared more about fame and fortune than his own loved ones, hm?" Then he put his finger to his lips with a soft 'Shhh' to hush her. "Secrets, darling. We all have them. I have them, and I didn't want any of you to know. Don't apologise for anything. Call it a bitch's prerogative. But I need your help. I require a little information, though I'm not sure now you will be able to help me. Who are you still in touch with?"
Jenna was at a loss as to exactly why Asher had chosen now to make his appearance in her life, but she wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth. Right now, her main purpose was just to be happy that he was here, and she intended to very much do that. It certainly wasn't lost on her that there was something very different in Asher as she stood in front of him, but she just couldn't place what it was. "Can I get you something to eat or drink?" she asked turning to him again. "I've got this cabernet that is absolutely amazing. You'd love it."
"Come sit down," she prompted, leading the way into her living room before taking a seat on the sofa. "Secrets are fair enough," she replied, more to herself than to Asher though. "I was so heartbroken thinking you were long gone. And here you are in my livingroom." She shook her head in disbelief. This was the most ridiculous thing when Jenna really thought about it. A friend she'd long believed dead was sitting right there with her in her living room. "Who am I still in touch with?" she asked, assuming he meant from school. "Fiona and Jill... Sometimes I hear from Caleb, although we don't see each other much. Ironic, since we live in the same city, but you know how things go when you're busy... Why? Did you need to get in touch with someone?"
"No, thank you, darling. I just ate. But, please, don't not indulge on my behalf. You should, I'm sure you deserve it having me show up on your doorstep out of the blue like this," Asher returned without hesitation. He knew some Kindred honed the fine art of ingesting food and beverage to purge in the wake of social events, all in the name of The Masquerade, but Asher was still only a very young Childer in the grander scheme of things and he although he had responded to the whole Embrace like a survivor and perfected what he needed for survival tactics and prevention of being controlled or taken advantage of, things like those advanced skills were far off for him. A lot of the time, it was hard not to purge the blood he ingested.
He followed her into the living room, taking a seat and neatly crossing his legs over at the knees, placing his hands on them. He knew this was a far, far cry to their interactions and time together in the past. That would have been a lot more relaxed, and Asher not on guard with protective shields up all around him. He had to protect himself though, because everything was still so uncertain. There was no guarantee he could trust Jenna with what he was until he spent more time with her and analysed that she could cope with the information. For now, he was all on his own and didn't know who he could trust. He didn't even trust his own Sire after being taken against his will. He had no one, and the one person he wanted and needed, it was uncertain whether Asher could even be trusted with him. "Caleb." The world rolled smoothly from his tongue and Asher's chilled blue eyes locked Jenna's intently. "That will be a fine start, I believe. How is Caleb these days, darling? What is he doing with himself?"
It wasn't like Asher to turn down a fine wine... or a fine anything for that matter, but Jenna reminded herself, yet again, that they hadn't seen each other in so long, it was only normal that Asher wouldn't be exactly how she remembered him. But she poured herself a glass and took a seat so she could see his face. "Suit yourself," she replied with a faint smile. "But you really should try it sometime. It's exquisite. One of the best things I've ever tasted." She watched Asher curiously, entirely unused to being this close to her best friend and not giggling about days gone by, or ripping apart someone's outfit or bad cosmetic surgery on TV. They'd once had such a rhythm between them, things just flowing the way that it felt they should flow. There wasn't a hint of that now. Just a sort of standoffish feel where neither of them really seemed to know what to say to the other.
But when Asher immediately latched onto Caleb's name, Jenna was almost sure she knew where this was going. "He's doing well... Running a high end night club. Caleb and high end... Things I never thought I'd put in the same thought, but he's doing great with it. He might open one of his own someday, but right now, he's enjoying running it on someone else's dime."
TBC...
What: Hunting for vital information
Where: Jenna's apartment
When: Thursday evening
Asher stepped out of the bathroom cubicle at The Plaza Hotel, gently dabbing at the corner of his lips with a black handkerchief that he slipped into the pocket of his long leather coat over his pristine personally designed outfit. He paused only long enough to check his reflection in the large, ornate mirrors, making sure his appearance was anything but pristine and then he swept purposefully out of the men's room to leave the hotel into the busy New York night once more. He wasn't quite as satisfied as he should have been, but it would do for now. Right now, any sustenance he isolated for himself was just like a band-aid fix and it only increased his desire for that one taste he couldn't have. It was eating him up inside, and he knew it. It was consuming him, and he was letting it. He couldn't go on like this.
Which is why he did something he probably wouldn't have done if he hadn't run into Jill, an old face from back home who had dropped some vital pieces of information, in a bar. He walked the lengthy blocks to the apartment block that was his target, clearly now having no concern for his safety as he dipped and wove through some darkened alleys. It would be a big mistake for anyone to attempt to harm him anyway, and it wouldn't be the first time anyway. He stood at the door now of the one person he had known to be in New York all along and had avoided ever since. Asher cut himself off from just about everyone after Brodie broke up with him, and it probably didn't help his downward spiral that lead to, well, his death, so to speak. That was part of the reason he hadn't completely lost it with Eric and Logan. He had taken his own life, and they saved him. He just still wasn't entirely sure he wanted any of this, and it could compound when he got over-emotional or lacked appropriate sustenance. But if they wanted to keep putting themselves in his presence, they were just going to have to deal with it. Nothing like a bitchy vampire on your backs, that was for sure.
Asher waited, blue eyes scanning the perimeter of the hallway on the floor of the apartment. It was quiet. That was good. He didn't like it when unfamiliar places got too loud on him. But as soon as Jenna answered the door, he gave her a veiled smile, tilting his head a little at her. "Hello, darling. Miss me?" he greeted her calmly.
It had been a seriously long day, and honestly, Jenna was exhausted. Her heart for this City wasn't what it used to be after the accident that may or may not have killed her fag. A darkness had well and truly fallen over Jenna's life. She remained the shrewd, Columbia educated businesswoman that she always had been, and as far as her family and "friends" knew, she was just fine. But the truth was that, since losing Asher (whether to death or disappearance), Jenna had dealt with a very difficult level of depression. She'd been in counseling, trying to get her life back on track, and while it had worked very well, there were still days when it shook her to her core that Asher wasn't there, and no one truly could tell her where he was or if he was even still alive. She'd had a good week this week, but on this particular night, after a tough day at work, and a coworker going on about her new Asheresque bag and the oft-repeated tale of how Asher had died, leaving books of designs behind that his company were still developing in his absence (pure fabrication, when it was actually Asher himself still designing), Jenna had come home to her Tribeca apartment, and poured herself a glass of the most expensive cabernet she owned.
On days like this, Jenna usually found herself dragging out her box set of The Tudors, watching Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and trying to focus on the perfection that was the TV version of Henry VIII's body instead of the heartbreak that she still felt over the loss of her friend. The cabernet was finally beginning to relax her when she heard the buzzer from her apartment door. Setting the wineglass on the coffee table, Jenna stood up and went to the door. When she opened it, she was relatively sure that there was something more than alcohol in her wine. Just like that, Asher Rose was standing right in front of her, looking like absolute sex on legs, speaking from a purely former fag hag place in Jenna's heart. Asher had always been a beautiful and impeccably dressed man, but this was beyond what she even remembered, and she just stood their for a moment, her mouth hanging open. Stammering over an attempt at words, she finally managed, "A... Asher."
"You're looking fabulous, darling," Asher offered, even if his bright blue eyes never left being locked on hers. "Aren't you going to invite me in?" He honestly didn't know anything of where his friends were or where they had ended up. With his rapid rise to success, he really had let the whole thing to go to his head. He was caught up in the shiny realm of money and celebrity, but success came at a price, just like everyone said it would. He even lost contact with his parents when all his promises to keep in touch went by the wayside. He had always had something more important to do than give time to the people he loved. He lost his relationship, he lost Brodie, and he never managed to find his footing again. He regretted the whole thing, he regretted that he let himself turn into one of those celebrity assholes, and he paid the worst price. It was sheer loss, and emptiness, and loneliness that got him into all this mess to start with.
Once he realised what he had become, though, he always swore he wouldn't use his friends as a source of sustenance. He wouldn't hunt them down to indulge just because they were familiar and easy for him. There was one exception to that rule, of course. That was sheer and desperate need more than anything, but he wasn't here to use Jenna as a meal. As beautiful as she was, Asher solely fed on beautiful young males. He had tried a female one, but he ended up nearly tearing her to bits because the undercurrent of passion and appreciation of her physically was missing. She was just a meal, and luckily Logan had intercepted him in a frenzy before he did too much damage. Jenna was always just his fag hag, his best friend. It was no secret he had always been as gay as a rainbow flag at a pride march. He was here for a reason, but it wasn't to hurt her. "Better late than never, yes?"
"I... I could say the same about you," Jenna replied when she found her voice again. If this was a dream, it was a really fucking realistic one, and she was pretty sure she couldn't even dream into being the outfit that Asher was wearing. It was too gorgeous, and too perfectly suited to Asher. Her mind couldn't make that up, subconscious or no, and she was still staring at him when he asked if she was going to invite him in. "Of... of course," she said, although part of her had the feeling she was inviting a ghost into her apartment. Asher was dead. But he obviously wasn't, and here he was, sassy gay bitch as always, and she couldn't deny that she was relieved to see him.
She wanted to hug him and scream with excitement that he was alive, but there was something in his demeanor that restrained her. There was something... separate about Asher. He wasn't the warm, loving fag/BFF she remembered and missed every single day. There was a distance between them, and it didn't just seem like time. Asher was distant, not quite cold, but definitely not warm. Unable to hide her confusion, Jenna nodded numbly. "Asher... It's not that I'm not thrilled to see you, because I am, but... I kind of feel like I'm seeing dead people. Where the hell have you been? You just... Let us think you were dead! Do you have any idea how much I missed you?" And suddenly there was a strong urge to cry that Jenna was fighting with everything she had. How could he do this to them? Let them think he was dead, but with no body, no funeral, no chance to get the closure they needed and say goodbye. Why couldn't he have told her that she was okay?
Asher gave a light laugh as he sauntered into her apartment. "Dead people, darling? Do I look dead?" And he was pretty much just going to leave it at that. Yes. Yes, he had quite a distinct notion of how much people missed him. He had been at his own memorial service and had to keep his distance because being a new Kindred, he had been uncontrollably tapping into everyone's emotions that led him to aggravation when he couldn't feel Brodie's, which had been the only reason he had been there in the first place. Being blocked from that by everyone else's onslaught of grieving feelings had the avenue of setting him off, and he really hadn't wanted to start sinking fang into random people at his funeral. That would have been extremely unclassy.
He waited for a moment in silence so she could actually absorb his presence, see that he wasn't, in fact, dead... at least, not on the face of it. If she got too close and too observant, she would be able to tell he wasn't breathing. There was many, many reasons Asher didn't let people, especially humans, close to him, and that was one of them. "On the contrary, darling, no one tried to contact me. How was I supposed to know anyone cared? People thought I had my head up my ass for so long, they didn't want to deal with me." Guilt-tripping, it was his only real tool to keep control here or he would start to get upset, and how the fuck would be explain tears of blood to her? He had to keep a stoic distance until he had a better control on his emotions. He just didn't know how he could manage any of that without Brodie. Brodie wasn't physically with him, but he still consumed him every minute of every day. Asher was hovering on a precipice now of deciding to find Brodie and draw him into his world, or ending his Kindred life once and for all. There was no grey area for Asher. "I was abroad when the whole mess occurred. And maybe I was little bit mad at you all for burying me prematurely. And by bury, I mean, honour my life in a memorial service sans casket, because clearly... I'm not ready to be in one of those," he said, giving a light wave of his hand up and down his torso for emphasis.
Jenna had to admit that Asher definitely didn't look dead. To the contrary, he looked fantastic. Still as slender as ever, his clothing perfect, his hair immaculate. He was gorgeous, just as he always had been. "No," she finally said, verbalizing the thoughts in her mind in the most simple of ways. "You don't look dead at all. You look... every bit the same fabulous Asher you've always been." Still, Jenna hadn't seen Asher in a long time, but that didn't mean that she didn't recognize that something was different. But she couldn't quite put a finger on what, and that bothered her far more deeply than she wanted to admit to.
She paused, meeting Asher's gaze as she tried to come up with a decent answer to that, but in all honesty, there really wasn't one. And the fact was, yes. She'd been hurt by Asher, and yes, she had forced herself not to care anymore, or at least to pretend, because he'd hurt her so much. But still, his death had broken her heart. Or... his supposed death, because clearly death wasn't really the case. "I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. "I just... I can't believe you're... you're here, and alive. Asher... Honey, I'm so happy to see you... I'm sorry if it seems like I'm not, but I'm still kind of in shock." And if there was any question of that, it was pretty clear when she kept looking at him, as if not quite sure he wouldn't fade into thin air.
Asher's senses piqued with familiar scents, but he wasn't detecting anything remotely resembling what he was looking for. Brodie hadn't been here recently, or probably even at all. If he had, Asher would have picked up on it by now. His eyes swept over the interior of her apartment, but it wasn't the décor he was analysing by any means. The old Asher probably would have commented, probably even one of the first things out of his mouth, but who he was now had a very, very different set of priorities. A different set of needs and wants. At least it was comforting for him to know Jenna wasn't his taste. It afforded him some safety with her that he wouldn't lose control, and that was a security blanket he needed at the moment.
He eventually turned in a full circle on the spot, slowly and purposefully, so he was once again looking to Jenna. He shook his head slowly. "I didn't let anyone think I was dead, darling. They believed what they liked. They let themselves. Maybe it was easier to deal with a corpse than an asshole who cared more about fame and fortune than his own loved ones, hm?" Then he put his finger to his lips with a soft 'Shhh' to hush her. "Secrets, darling. We all have them. I have them, and I didn't want any of you to know. Don't apologise for anything. Call it a bitch's prerogative. But I need your help. I require a little information, though I'm not sure now you will be able to help me. Who are you still in touch with?"
Jenna was at a loss as to exactly why Asher had chosen now to make his appearance in her life, but she wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth. Right now, her main purpose was just to be happy that he was here, and she intended to very much do that. It certainly wasn't lost on her that there was something very different in Asher as she stood in front of him, but she just couldn't place what it was. "Can I get you something to eat or drink?" she asked turning to him again. "I've got this cabernet that is absolutely amazing. You'd love it."
"Come sit down," she prompted, leading the way into her living room before taking a seat on the sofa. "Secrets are fair enough," she replied, more to herself than to Asher though. "I was so heartbroken thinking you were long gone. And here you are in my livingroom." She shook her head in disbelief. This was the most ridiculous thing when Jenna really thought about it. A friend she'd long believed dead was sitting right there with her in her living room. "Who am I still in touch with?" she asked, assuming he meant from school. "Fiona and Jill... Sometimes I hear from Caleb, although we don't see each other much. Ironic, since we live in the same city, but you know how things go when you're busy... Why? Did you need to get in touch with someone?"
"No, thank you, darling. I just ate. But, please, don't not indulge on my behalf. You should, I'm sure you deserve it having me show up on your doorstep out of the blue like this," Asher returned without hesitation. He knew some Kindred honed the fine art of ingesting food and beverage to purge in the wake of social events, all in the name of The Masquerade, but Asher was still only a very young Childer in the grander scheme of things and he although he had responded to the whole Embrace like a survivor and perfected what he needed for survival tactics and prevention of being controlled or taken advantage of, things like those advanced skills were far off for him. A lot of the time, it was hard not to purge the blood he ingested.
He followed her into the living room, taking a seat and neatly crossing his legs over at the knees, placing his hands on them. He knew this was a far, far cry to their interactions and time together in the past. That would have been a lot more relaxed, and Asher not on guard with protective shields up all around him. He had to protect himself though, because everything was still so uncertain. There was no guarantee he could trust Jenna with what he was until he spent more time with her and analysed that she could cope with the information. For now, he was all on his own and didn't know who he could trust. He didn't even trust his own Sire after being taken against his will. He had no one, and the one person he wanted and needed, it was uncertain whether Asher could even be trusted with him. "Caleb." The world rolled smoothly from his tongue and Asher's chilled blue eyes locked Jenna's intently. "That will be a fine start, I believe. How is Caleb these days, darling? What is he doing with himself?"
It wasn't like Asher to turn down a fine wine... or a fine anything for that matter, but Jenna reminded herself, yet again, that they hadn't seen each other in so long, it was only normal that Asher wouldn't be exactly how she remembered him. But she poured herself a glass and took a seat so she could see his face. "Suit yourself," she replied with a faint smile. "But you really should try it sometime. It's exquisite. One of the best things I've ever tasted." She watched Asher curiously, entirely unused to being this close to her best friend and not giggling about days gone by, or ripping apart someone's outfit or bad cosmetic surgery on TV. They'd once had such a rhythm between them, things just flowing the way that it felt they should flow. There wasn't a hint of that now. Just a sort of standoffish feel where neither of them really seemed to know what to say to the other.
But when Asher immediately latched onto Caleb's name, Jenna was almost sure she knew where this was going. "He's doing well... Running a high end night club. Caleb and high end... Things I never thought I'd put in the same thought, but he's doing great with it. He might open one of his own someday, but right now, he's enjoying running it on someone else's dime."
TBC...