Brodie Jay Bradford (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lostinthefairytale) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
noirenewyork2014-01-11 04:33 pm
lostinthefairytale) wrote in noirenewyork2014-01-11 04:33 pm
"You make me feel like a smooth criminal."
Who: Brodie Bradford, Logan Buchanan and Eric Knight
What: The domino effect of consequences
Where: Brodie & Caleb's shoebox apartment, Upper West Side
When: Directly after THIS
Brodie was just completely and utterly freaking out. He was functioning on autopilot by this point because his mind had pretty much began deflecting any rational thought. This whole thing was brushing too close too home and it had ripped open all the old wounds. Seeing the guy lying there bloody on the ground of the undercover parking lot had flashed him back to when the news had come that Asher had been hit by a car and killed in New York. That was the day Brodie was sure his heart had died, and the only thing that even kept him functioning right now was that tiny glimmer of hope by rumour that Asher was still alive somewhere. The whole thing was so strange and unusual. Brodie's rational side knew that Asher was dead and not coming back, but new designs kept coming from Asher's label and there was a conspiracy theory that he had faked his own death to escape the public eye after death threats... or any number of other possibly theories. Brodie thought that if Asher was alive, he would at least have let him know, even if they weren't together anymore. But no confirmation had ever come. Those designs coming from Asher's label were so Asher, though, and how could it just be from old portfolio pieces Asher had left upon his death and now just being manufactured posthumously?
None of it made sense, but as long as there was a flicker of hope, Brodie somehow kept functioning in his life. But functioning was all he did. He wasn't really living, he was never really happy. He had never been happy since he lost Asher, and no matter how much he tried to find something that was a new normal, it was always without Asher and his heart had always remained broken beyond repair. Life these days was just so hard. Waking up most days was hard. Some days, he wished he didn't have to keep waking up. But he did. Because today might be the day Asher wrote to him.
It was adrenaline that helped him get the poor injured guy with the accent (was it Scottish, Irish?) back to his tiny two-bedroomed apartment. It was just that. A tiny, two-bedroom apartment with barely any character or colour that two guys shared but hadn't put any real love into. It was drab and boring, with some photos littering the walls or surfaces here and there from a time in his life where he was happy and life made sense. He had sheet music lying around, his three guitars, a piano squashed in one corner of the living room that took up a lot of the room. A couple of old pizza boxes, dirty plates and glasses, some clothes strewn over furniture. It was the picture of someone who just didn't care anymore and how it had been left with Caleb out of town a couple of days prior to that visiting his mom in Charleston. Logan was sitting on the arm chair in the middle of it all whilst Brodie was in the bathroom up-ending his cabinet trying to find whatever medical supplies he could to try to patch this guy up. He came back out with a couple of bandages, some gauze, a bottle of Pepto, a thermometer and some sticky tape. Plus, he had a bottle of antiseptic, but there wasn't much left of it. He had spilled it when he cut himself on a knife a couple of months back and never bothered to replace it.
"Here, I just... I don't even know. I have Tylenol. Do you need Tylenol? I'll get you some Tylenol," he decided anxiously, and stumbled into the kitchen. He found the pills and poured the guy a glass of apple juice which he was just bringing back before the door buzzer rang. He nearly hit the roof because he was so on edge and jumped at the sound. He only splashed a small amount of the juice on the floor when he shoved the glass with the pills onto the coffee table and went to answer the buzzer. He buzzed the person in, knowing it had to be Logan's girlfriend. And he had no idea why he assumed the 'other half' was a female, but as soon as he answered his apartment door and found a guy that looked like a supermodel standing there, he just gaped... dumbfounded. It was like his brain finally just snapped.
Logan hadn't known what he would expect out of the place Asher's apparent soul mate lived, but it wasn't this. Asher was immaculate, rich, very expensive looking, beautiful... all those things inherent to Toreador in general, but Logan had expected the guy he loved to be a little more... upper class? Was that even what he was looking for? He didn't know, but he wasn't expecting this. Not even close. It had to be one of the smallest apartments in New York. It wasn't dirty, but it wasn't neat or tidy either. It wasn't even a bachelor pad. It was just a few walls, some furniture, some photos. Anyone would be depressed living here and it had a sensation of loneliness and sadness surrounding it. What the hell was this guy's story and how was he Asher's soul mate? Emmeline had been absolutely insistent on from the small portions of information that Asher had let slip that this Brodie was Asher's soul mate, and Logan had sensed it himself the moment he saw Brodie. None of it made sense.
As soon as he was in the apartment, though, he asked Brodie if he could use his bathroom. Brodie wasn't about to deny him anything at this point. Logan could have asked for his life savings, and the poor wee bastard would have handed it over he was so freaked out. As soon as he had closed himself into the epically puny bathroom, he had immediately set to work trawling it for any signs of some sort of illness, but the bathroom was just as boring and empty as the rest of the apartment. Essentials only. There was lube and condoms, though, which made sense from the phone conversation he had overheard before he intercepted Brodie's path. He was dating someone, but it wasn't a happy relationship. Then when Brodie had been in the bathroom after, Logan had used his lightning quick Kindred agility to try to find any sort of information in the apartment. Infuriatingly, all he found was a yearbook and some photos of him and Asher shoved away in a drawer that confirmed their past at least. He had the right dude. But nothing else had been found before he sensed Brodie returning and threw himself back into that armchair.
Now Eric was here, and as soon as the door opened, he saw Eric physically baulk when Brodie's scent hit him. He would be sensing Asher, but was his hunger piquing? It was hard to tell because he was working to maintain outward composure. It was like a Mexican stand-off for a few moments, though, until Logan cleared his throat and spoke. "Hey, love. This is Brodie..." he explained slowly, the name rolling off his tongue to confirm what Eric would already be thinking and feeling. Logan hadn't told him anything on the phone. Just to come to this address and ASAP. Now he was being met with the presence of Brodie and the sight of Logan bleeding and banged up. Kindred healing could take care of that, but it would be confronting on first sight. "There was a wee bit of an accident. Brodie kindly brought me back here to get me a few band-aids and some Tylenol... Nothing too serious, I'm sure..." If Eric didn't wade through his inner reaction and senses here, it was going to freak Brodie out if he kept staring at him like he was lunch meat. He had to speak, and Logan tried to mentally send some sort of psychic force to his other half to give him a boot up the butt to respond here. They couldn't fuck this up. Not now.
Eric hadn't been entirely aware of the turn his lover's plan would take. He knew full well that Logan had every intention of getting into Brodie's world a little, figuring out what made the man tick, and trying to find a connection to Asher through it all. But when the door to the apartment opened, the way that the apartment looked was the last fucking thing that Eric noticed. All his senses were immediately on high alert, and it had nothing to do with how un-Asher-like the place looked and everything to do with a burning hunger that ignited almost literally the second that he clapped eyes on Brodie. It took all his focus to keep his hunger under control. Brodie was exactly to his taste, and that threw a major kink into the whole thing right away. There was no question about it... Brodie was facing an illness of some sort... something that was life-threatening. There wasn't any mistaking it... especially not for Eric. It was exactly to his taste, and he was totally and completely on edge here.
Logan's words were the only thing drawing Eric back down to earth, and fuck did his lover look banged up, but Eric just couldn't tear his eyes away from Brodie. The poor guy looked terrified, probably convinced that Eric had come to fuck him up for running over Logan. He couldn't have the kid... and though Brodie was a grown man, he just gave off the feeling of someone very young and very afraid, even at the same time that his hurt and heartbreak had seemed to age him... thinking that he was about to rip him a new asshole. Thinking that Asher was dead had surely taken it out of him, because from all the information they had, and the way that it felt standing here with him, this man was Asher's other half, his soul mate, the person that had been his whole world. But for whatever reason, the pair weren't together anymore, and Eric wasn't entirely sure what had caused it, but it had very clearly left Brodie with a lot of heartache and pain. But this other thing... whatever it was... was very much a real thing, and something that Eric was at a loss as to how to approach. He couldn't just blurt it out right now anyway. They were trying to get close to Brodie for Asher's sake, and whether he admitted it or not, Eric was at his core, an animal. An animal with a very specific taste, and Brodie was very much that taste, and hunger was a strong driving force.
Still, he kept his composure, and managed a smooth smile of reassurance. "Hello, Brodie," he greeted the young man before his attentions turned to his lover to keep up appearances. "I'm so glad to see you're all right, darling. You nearly gave me the fright of my life. Are you sure you feel okay?" He glanced at Brodie again, his voice smooth. "Thank you for looking after him, love."
"I hit him!" Brodie blurted out, his voice risen and even slightly squeaky. He wasn't keeping it together at all, because frankly this whole thing had freaked him the fuck out and all that kept playing over and over again in his head was the phone call that told him Asher had been hit by a car and was killed. Ever since then, Brodie had been probably the most cautious driver in existence. He hated driving, but with all the equipment he had to drag around for his gigs, he had no choice but to get behind the wheel. After tonight, he wasn't sure he ever would again. "I-I-I- hit him! With my car! I was just... just backing out, and he was there! And I never meant to do it! I didn't even see, because he was just there and I don't think I was going all that fast, but I hit him! A-And there was all this blood and I couldn't find a pulse! There was no pulse! Because cars kills people, you know! They do! They take them away from you and you never see them again and your whole world falls apart!" Tears were once again splashing down Brodie's cheeks as he rambled in distress, and he had backed himself up against the wall by the door like he was really intimidated of what these guys might do to him because of what he did. But it wasn't even that. He just wasn't used to having strangers in his home, and now there were two and they were sort of... prominent. Like how you might feel if you met a powerful celebrity and would be awed by their presence. It didn't make any sense to Brodie and no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't calm his frayed emotions here. He had no idea that they were probably hitting these guys like a sledgehammer, but the more he let himself panic, the worse he seemed to get."
And despite the fact the guy had already assured him they wouldn't involved the authorities, it was just another thing for Brodie to worry about. What if he changed his mind? "Please, please don't call the cops," he begged them, shaking his head as he wiped at his eyes and cheeks with the back of his wrist, sniffling loudly to try to stop the tears. "I'm barely making ends meet and I'll be screwed if I have any sort of record. I-I'm trying to make something of myself, but everything is just so hard and... and... I-I don't really have all that much to live for. All I have left is my music and it's the only thing that means anything to me anymore. But no one is going to give a criminal with a record who h-hits people with their cars the time of day. And if I don't have my gig, I'll have hardly any cash to survive here, and I just... I have to be here. I have to stay in New York. I-I don't know why, but I just have to be. I can't go anywhere and it's really expensive here. So, please don't call the cops. Please," he added again in a sobbed, hoarse whisper when it felt like someone was sitting on his chest, his heart was hurting so much. Fuck, he missed Asher. He tried to put memories of him right locked away deep inside, but now all he could think of was Asher's bloodied and broken body lying left alone on a cold road like Logan had looked... only dead. That was when he broke down even harder, if that was possible, and slid down the wall to sink to the floor, burying his face in his hands when the crying came with earnest.
Well, now Logan just felt like a prized piece of ball fungus. They had no choice but to just sit there and take Brodie's onslaught of emotions, and it was coming so hard and fast that it was actually impossible to pinpoint specific emotions. It was all a jumble, and to come at a Kindred like that was sort of like a scrambled television signal. Where it was usually easy for a Kindred to sense a person's emotions, reactions, responses through their feelings, when there was this much going on, it was hard to get anything but smacked in the face by a massive wave of distress. They couldn't stop it, either. Logan had caused this and they had no choice but to deal with it, and he had to keep reminding himself that it was to protect Asher. It sucked like fucking hell that they had to hurt Asher's one true love, his soul mate, to protect him but by this point, Logan was 100% convinced that the key to Asher's trust was bringing Brodie back into his world. Only, the amount of twists and turns and complications was started to make Logan's own head spin and he was having quite the distinct feelings of deja-vu from when he was losing his memory and brain capacity with the tumour that ultimately took his life. And it would be so much more difficult for Eric because if there was a hunger for Brodie like he suspected, he was going to have to fight it here and maintain utter self-control, or they would both be destined for certain death, whether it be by Eric's brother's orders or by Asher.
He wanted to get up and go give the poor wee soul a hug. He was crushed and broken, and he hadn't even been the one hit by the car. Hearing the rambling he was coming out with, though, it was obvious it was Asher he was referring to and Logan could see now that even if they weren't together, losing Asher had seriously fucked with this guy's head... and his life. They had to do something or he was going to have a nervous breakdown, and shoving that into Asher's path right now would absolutely do more harm than good. There was a risk Asher would take him against his will without control just to stop his pain. That just wouldn't do. But he also had to keep up the ruse he was injured, so he couldn't get out of the chair to comfort him. "Hey, hey... laddie, listen to me. We arenae calling the cops. I used to be one, I know what those fuckers are like. We dinnae need none of that. I'm fine, I dinnae even need the ER. Just calm yourself a wee bit and we can have a wee chat, aye? You havenae got anything to worry about. Eric, why dinnae you get the laddie a wee drink of water and you can tell us why this has all gotten you so upset, buddy. Hush now. Point us in the direction of some Kleenex before you get snot on everything." Normal tears. It almost seemed odd. When Kindred cried, they cried blood because they had no other bodily fluids. Brodie was so blatantly human right now, it was very, very intimidating. Logan realised at that moment just how engulfed in The Masquerade and Kindred world he had become of late.
Eric was trying his damnedest to hold his shit together right now. The hunger was building up deep within him, and he was having to focus every ounce of energy on keeping himself under control. The last thing he needed was to lose control and cost them the last possible chance they had at getting through to Asher. This hunger that he felt for Brodie was far above and beyond any level of hunger that one felt as a human... It wasn't something so easily controlled. It was literally like blood was pouring into shark infested waters, and Eric himself was the shark. "Hey, hey, now," he said, trying to calm himself just as much as he was trying to calm Brodie. His tone was strained, but even as he continued, "We know you didn't mean to, buddy. Logan here told me himself when he called... He wasn't being careful, he wasn't paying attention and he stepped right in front of you. It isn't your fault at all. It's my clumsy darling's fault. You've done nothing wrong, Brodie. You can't blame yourself." But there was no reasoning with the young man, and no doubt in Eric's mind that there was one reason for that, and one reason alone. The boy was terrified, hurting, and literally a mess, and he was so painfully lonely, too... All of that was sort of rushing at Eric at once, and it was almost overwhelming him with the realization that there had once been such a strong connection between Asher and Brodie, and that maybe that connection was still as strong as ever, even if circumstance and time had interrupted it.
Unlike his lover, Eric had nothing like hugging Brodie in his mind whatsoever. Much to the contrary, he was trying to think of ways to keep distance between himself and Brodie. Logan's directions, to go and get Brodie a drink, were a welcome distraction, and he very much took him up on it, moving out to the kitchen to find a glass and fill it with water, before doing a quick visual sweep to see if he could find any tissue to bring into the living room for Brodie. This was fucking ridiculous. He wanted to know what exactly was wrong with the young man, and there was no okay way to ask that question. If he was piquing Eric's senses, he was very sick, but that wasn't something you asked someone randomly, and the fact was, Brodie felt like shit whether he knew he was ill or not. This was suddenly all kinds of complicated, and Eric just sat there as Brodie took the glass of water from him. "Logan's right," he assured him, finding his ability to speak a bit more normal, if only because he was using every ounce of energy to focus on keeping it together. "We don't want any authorities involved or anyone getting hurt. We just want to make sure that you and Logan are both okay. Come on, bud... Let's just talk, okay?" He glanced over at Logan, knowing that his lover would sense that he was very much on edge with Brodie, and would know why. This was pure unadulterated hunger, and that just put a whole new kink in the lines here.
Brodie looked up at Eric, the tears still spilling over. His hand was shaking as he reached up to accept the glass of water with a hoarse, mumble of, "Thank you." Before he took any, he tried wiping his eyes again and sniffling but he sipped the water in hopes it would make him feel at least a little bit better. Why did his life just have to suck so bad? Without Asher, it had just been like some force was working against him and he could never find his feet. He couldn't remember what being happy felt like. Jared was just something he had to try to get back to normal, but it had never felt even remotely close to anything he had with Asher. He didn't love Jared, never had. It was impossible to love anyone but Asher, but Asher was gone and he wasn't coming back, so he had to at least try to live without him, right? And that was all he was doing - trying - because he wasn't succeeding. The more time past, the more it seemed to hurt that Asher was gone. Wasn't it supposed to get better with time? That was a load of shit. He was just really grateful these guys weren't going to call the cops. And did Logan just say he used to be one? Brodie looked at him for a moment, wondering why he wasn't anymore, but he was sort of too terrified to actually ask at this point. What he really wanted to do was curl up in a ball right here on the spot, hug the glass of water in lieu of being able to hug anything else, and cry his eyes out until things stopped hurting again. They just never did, though, so that would be stupid and exhausting. That was what stopped him doing most things like that these days... it was too exhausting.
"I-I'm sorry about everything. I'm useless, I know. I just... s-someone really important to me died not that long ago. He got hit by a car and killed, and the person didn't stop to help him. Maybe if they stopped, they might have been able to save him..." Brodie began in a tiny voice, that part of the whole thing always what bothered him the most. "I don't get how anyone can just... hurt someone like that without a care in the world and not want to help them, and make sure they're okay. To just... just leave him lying there to bleed to death? It was dark, and cold, and he was just left there all alone to die w-without anyone there to hold him or comfort him. And he was amazing, and he was beautiful, and I should never have let him go. But now he's gone forever" he said in a tight whisper when his voice broke and he buried his face into the crook of his arm with another renewed wave of tears.
Logan felt his stomach turn and if he was human, he would have no doubt vomited at that point. He actually had to gulp heavily to try to quell the surge of emotion because he didn't want to lose control here either. But hearing Brodie reference Asher like this was crushing him from the inside out. Asher was his Childer, even if he shared the job with Eric, and this was killing him to hear. He wanted to go over to Brodie and reassure him that Asher very much wasn't all alone when he died, but also that there really would have been no way of saving him. Asher didn't die on impact, but it was barely minutes in the wake of it. He had been an absolute mess, completely smashed up as one would expect when hit by a speeding 4x4 as Asher had been. In fact, if Logan hadn't Embraced him right as he did almost at the point of his dying breath, Asher would have reawaken with the deformities of the accident. Because his heart was still beating when Logan turned him, he was able to reawaken unblemished and with the beauty of a true Toreador. Logan wished he could heap out all the reassurances in the world to Brodie right now, but without outing themselves and outing Asher and revealing The Masquerade right here and now, they couldn't.
It wasn't often Logan was at a loss for words, but this was definitely one of them. He was flooded with guilt over being the one to take Asher, but he also saved him on some level. A level Asher wasn't sure he wanted, and hence the mess they were all in. But he was guilty about having to force Brodie to hit him with a car, because it triggered all this grief and loneliness in the kid. Stirred up all the old, awful feelings. It had been the only way he could have gotten Brodie's scent on him, though, short of sexual assault and Asher being his Childer, he would NEVER had touched Brodie like that, not to mention sex wasn't a necessity for Kindred but merely a way to heighten the thrill of feeding. It was a no-go zone for him. Asher had a soul mate, and that was hands-off as far as Logan was concerned. He might have reawakened a Kindred manslut, but he did have standards and some morals he prided himself on. "It sounds like you havenae had any closure, buddy. What was he like? Where were you when it happened? Had you been together long?" May as well try to get some information about their past in the process, if Brodie would talk about it.
Even in the midst of his hunger, Eric couldn't help but feel for Brodie. The poor guy was completely heartbroken in the loss of his true love, his soul mate. It had been so long since Eric had been mortal, and he'd never known Logan as anything but Kindred, so the concept that Brodie was talking about was a hard one to imagine. There were ways to kill a Kindred, but they were very few, and it wasn't a given that they would die like it was with mortals. Nor was the concept of growing old together something that would even occur to them, because they didn't age. But it was clear just from talking to Brodie that this was heartbreak and disappointment stemming from certain dreams and expectations that he would share a mortal life with Asher, not have him taken and lost to death so young. Like Logan, Eric was wishing he could comfort Brodie with the knowledge that they had. It almost felt wrong letting him suffer like this when they knew the truth that would rescue him from all of this heartache. But that was a lot of information that they couldn't give him yet. They knew nothing about this kid except that he was still in love with Asher, and that he was obviously very ill, whether he knew that or not.
"There, there," Eric comforted, trying to be kind but without breaking the careful control he'd built over himself in the situation. This wasn't a joke, and if he broke, Brodie might very well find out more than he needed to know and all too quickly. "We're very sorry to hear about your beloved. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose Logan here. That's not meant to make you feel guilty about the car thing, either. He should've paid attention and been more careful. But he's going to be just fine, and you didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't your fault, Brodie. And you didn't leave him there to die. You can't blame yourself. Logan will be okay after some rest and a bit of medical attention, and we won't even ask you to pay for it. It was an accident. I'm so sorry, though, that my other half's foolishness and lack of paying attention ended up causing you so much trouble. Please don't worry, Brodie. We're going to make sure that this doesn't come back to bite you."
Brodie felt like a stupid dick for getting so upset in front of a pair of strangers like this, but once the floodgates opened on his feelings for Asher, it was absolutely impossible for him to get an easy hold back on them. This was why he tried to keep them shoved to the back of his heart so much, and it was why Caleb helped him do that. It might not be healthy, but it was easy. Caleb never wanted to see him hurting more than he already did. He had stuck by Brodie's side through the whole terrible shock and grief when the news of Asher's death came. But the only way Brodie dealt with it was by not directly dealing with it, so Caleb supported that. They could mostly keep a working friendship, hanging out, watching sports, having Star Wars marathons... the same ol' they always had been. But underneath all that, there was this deep, painful scarring and a gaping hole within Brodie where Asher was missing. When they had just broken up, and Brodie made the horribly painful choice to do it when Asher had changed, become a different person Brodie didn't think he knew or understood anymore, it had been manageable. There had always been that hope inside that one day, his old Asher would come back to him and they would reunite, and be together forever. Soul mates. But as soon as Asher had died, that was ripped away, and Brodie had never recovered. If Caleb was here, he would probably be close to thumping both these dudes for dragging up the pain for Brodie when they had worked so hard to keep it buried. For once, Brodie was glad Caleb wasn't there right at that moment.
He wiped at his eyes with the balled up bunch of soggy Kleenex threaded between his shaky fingers and then carefully took some sips of the water before he put the glass down on the floor beside him. He looked at the sodden papery mess in his hand, sniffling loudly and wetly before he finally spoke up in small, teary and lost voice. "H-He was amazing. The most amazing and beautiful person you could ever meet. I'm not even exaggerating. You might know him. Most people in New York probably do. He was a fashion designer, and was so beautifully talented and ambitious, that he took the world by storm. But he... he was always just my Asher. At least, he was until he wasn't. He... h-he changed, see. He came here, and became someone I didn't know anymore. It was like he cared more about his work than me, and forgot me. I had to make appointments to even have a conversation with him. I would sit at home and just... wait for him. And I would have waited for him forever. I would have, but he... never came back to me." The tears flooded again and he covered his face with the tissues for a couple of minutes, crying softly and working to regain his composure.
"We were together since we were seventeen and it worked. It worked so fucking well at first. Then it stopped. I was supposed to come here and be with him, but he was on fire. He was a force to be reckoned with and there was no room for me. So, I broke up with him and went to LA with my best friend. That's where I was when it happened. When I... I got that awful phone call." He stopped, hiccuping a little when his voice broke. "Dead. Hit by a car. Never coming back to me. But I just can't let him go, no matter how much I try. It's like part of me has died too and I can't function without it. We were supposed to be together forever."
Suddenly, Logan was having second thoughts about all of this. It had seemed like a perfect plan to begin with, a way to get Asher to respond to them. But now hearing how deeply connected to all of this Brodie still was, and that the feelings were still very much alive despite believing Asher to be dead, Logan didn't know if he could go through with setting Asher off into a frenzy of passion the moment he sensed Brodie scent all over him. The problem here, as Logan had suspected all along, was that the love between Asher and Brodie had never died. The situation had fallen apart and it had crashed and burned, but the love still burned underneath it all. This had to be the reason Asher killed himself. That had always been something Logan had never been sure of. Asher was suicidal, but they never knew why. Asher wasn't about to tell them. He never once even got close to giving them any information on why he had killed himself. All they had known, and that was from sensing his emotions when he had still been human, was that he had been miserable. Deeply depressed. Eric had hungrily desired him too, which told Logan Asher had brushed with death from an illness in the past... but what if that illness had been psychological and not physical? That had never even crossed his mind. What if Asher had tried to kill himself before? That the suicidal ideation from clinical depression was why Eric hungered for him so badly? It was still an illness that could lead to death. Not even Eric himself had probably considered his own taste in that light before, though. Hearing Brodie here now, Logan just couldn't shake the notion that this guy, heartbroken and lost without his soul mate, was exactly a carbon copy of Asher and why Asher had taken his own life.
And that fucking complicated crap even more. Was Asher's suicide one of lost love and loneliness? And if so, why had he chosen that night, leaving a massive societal party dripping with big names and money, to do it? Why the hell didn't anything make any sense? But if Brodie was the catalyst of Asher taking his own life, Brodie could ultimately trigger a fuck load more complication responses for Asher in Kindred form. Especially if he thought Logan had been cavorting with him. They needed to abort mission. As soon as they got home, Logan needed to scrub himself and burn his clothing to try and rid himself of Brodie's sense, or they could all be facing an horrific turn of events no one needed. Goddamnit, that had been his only hopeful lead to connecting with Asher too. Now what?
He watched Eric, with Brodie not looking at either of them as he spoke. If Eric so much as touched Brodie or brushed against him, he probably wouldn't be able to control himself. If there was no physical contact, he should be okay. Hopefully. He couldn't afford to fuck up with Ben already suspicious and on his tail over everything. "Aye... definitely know of him, laddie. Eric here practically has shares in his label, he wears it so much. He's been with him at a party once or twice over the time. Wasnae there a rumour he might still be alive, though? I know what it's like to lose someone you love, buddy. Isnae any worse pain than that." This, however, was making Logan wonder more and more about mating with Eric. What if something happened, and he lost him for good? He couldn't handle that. He'd want to do exactly what Asher had done.
TBC...
What: The domino effect of consequences
Where: Brodie & Caleb's shoebox apartment, Upper West Side
When: Directly after THIS
Brodie was just completely and utterly freaking out. He was functioning on autopilot by this point because his mind had pretty much began deflecting any rational thought. This whole thing was brushing too close too home and it had ripped open all the old wounds. Seeing the guy lying there bloody on the ground of the undercover parking lot had flashed him back to when the news had come that Asher had been hit by a car and killed in New York. That was the day Brodie was sure his heart had died, and the only thing that even kept him functioning right now was that tiny glimmer of hope by rumour that Asher was still alive somewhere. The whole thing was so strange and unusual. Brodie's rational side knew that Asher was dead and not coming back, but new designs kept coming from Asher's label and there was a conspiracy theory that he had faked his own death to escape the public eye after death threats... or any number of other possibly theories. Brodie thought that if Asher was alive, he would at least have let him know, even if they weren't together anymore. But no confirmation had ever come. Those designs coming from Asher's label were so Asher, though, and how could it just be from old portfolio pieces Asher had left upon his death and now just being manufactured posthumously?
None of it made sense, but as long as there was a flicker of hope, Brodie somehow kept functioning in his life. But functioning was all he did. He wasn't really living, he was never really happy. He had never been happy since he lost Asher, and no matter how much he tried to find something that was a new normal, it was always without Asher and his heart had always remained broken beyond repair. Life these days was just so hard. Waking up most days was hard. Some days, he wished he didn't have to keep waking up. But he did. Because today might be the day Asher wrote to him.
It was adrenaline that helped him get the poor injured guy with the accent (was it Scottish, Irish?) back to his tiny two-bedroomed apartment. It was just that. A tiny, two-bedroom apartment with barely any character or colour that two guys shared but hadn't put any real love into. It was drab and boring, with some photos littering the walls or surfaces here and there from a time in his life where he was happy and life made sense. He had sheet music lying around, his three guitars, a piano squashed in one corner of the living room that took up a lot of the room. A couple of old pizza boxes, dirty plates and glasses, some clothes strewn over furniture. It was the picture of someone who just didn't care anymore and how it had been left with Caleb out of town a couple of days prior to that visiting his mom in Charleston. Logan was sitting on the arm chair in the middle of it all whilst Brodie was in the bathroom up-ending his cabinet trying to find whatever medical supplies he could to try to patch this guy up. He came back out with a couple of bandages, some gauze, a bottle of Pepto, a thermometer and some sticky tape. Plus, he had a bottle of antiseptic, but there wasn't much left of it. He had spilled it when he cut himself on a knife a couple of months back and never bothered to replace it.
"Here, I just... I don't even know. I have Tylenol. Do you need Tylenol? I'll get you some Tylenol," he decided anxiously, and stumbled into the kitchen. He found the pills and poured the guy a glass of apple juice which he was just bringing back before the door buzzer rang. He nearly hit the roof because he was so on edge and jumped at the sound. He only splashed a small amount of the juice on the floor when he shoved the glass with the pills onto the coffee table and went to answer the buzzer. He buzzed the person in, knowing it had to be Logan's girlfriend. And he had no idea why he assumed the 'other half' was a female, but as soon as he answered his apartment door and found a guy that looked like a supermodel standing there, he just gaped... dumbfounded. It was like his brain finally just snapped.
Logan hadn't known what he would expect out of the place Asher's apparent soul mate lived, but it wasn't this. Asher was immaculate, rich, very expensive looking, beautiful... all those things inherent to Toreador in general, but Logan had expected the guy he loved to be a little more... upper class? Was that even what he was looking for? He didn't know, but he wasn't expecting this. Not even close. It had to be one of the smallest apartments in New York. It wasn't dirty, but it wasn't neat or tidy either. It wasn't even a bachelor pad. It was just a few walls, some furniture, some photos. Anyone would be depressed living here and it had a sensation of loneliness and sadness surrounding it. What the hell was this guy's story and how was he Asher's soul mate? Emmeline had been absolutely insistent on from the small portions of information that Asher had let slip that this Brodie was Asher's soul mate, and Logan had sensed it himself the moment he saw Brodie. None of it made sense.
As soon as he was in the apartment, though, he asked Brodie if he could use his bathroom. Brodie wasn't about to deny him anything at this point. Logan could have asked for his life savings, and the poor wee bastard would have handed it over he was so freaked out. As soon as he had closed himself into the epically puny bathroom, he had immediately set to work trawling it for any signs of some sort of illness, but the bathroom was just as boring and empty as the rest of the apartment. Essentials only. There was lube and condoms, though, which made sense from the phone conversation he had overheard before he intercepted Brodie's path. He was dating someone, but it wasn't a happy relationship. Then when Brodie had been in the bathroom after, Logan had used his lightning quick Kindred agility to try to find any sort of information in the apartment. Infuriatingly, all he found was a yearbook and some photos of him and Asher shoved away in a drawer that confirmed their past at least. He had the right dude. But nothing else had been found before he sensed Brodie returning and threw himself back into that armchair.
Now Eric was here, and as soon as the door opened, he saw Eric physically baulk when Brodie's scent hit him. He would be sensing Asher, but was his hunger piquing? It was hard to tell because he was working to maintain outward composure. It was like a Mexican stand-off for a few moments, though, until Logan cleared his throat and spoke. "Hey, love. This is Brodie..." he explained slowly, the name rolling off his tongue to confirm what Eric would already be thinking and feeling. Logan hadn't told him anything on the phone. Just to come to this address and ASAP. Now he was being met with the presence of Brodie and the sight of Logan bleeding and banged up. Kindred healing could take care of that, but it would be confronting on first sight. "There was a wee bit of an accident. Brodie kindly brought me back here to get me a few band-aids and some Tylenol... Nothing too serious, I'm sure..." If Eric didn't wade through his inner reaction and senses here, it was going to freak Brodie out if he kept staring at him like he was lunch meat. He had to speak, and Logan tried to mentally send some sort of psychic force to his other half to give him a boot up the butt to respond here. They couldn't fuck this up. Not now.
Eric hadn't been entirely aware of the turn his lover's plan would take. He knew full well that Logan had every intention of getting into Brodie's world a little, figuring out what made the man tick, and trying to find a connection to Asher through it all. But when the door to the apartment opened, the way that the apartment looked was the last fucking thing that Eric noticed. All his senses were immediately on high alert, and it had nothing to do with how un-Asher-like the place looked and everything to do with a burning hunger that ignited almost literally the second that he clapped eyes on Brodie. It took all his focus to keep his hunger under control. Brodie was exactly to his taste, and that threw a major kink into the whole thing right away. There was no question about it... Brodie was facing an illness of some sort... something that was life-threatening. There wasn't any mistaking it... especially not for Eric. It was exactly to his taste, and he was totally and completely on edge here.
Logan's words were the only thing drawing Eric back down to earth, and fuck did his lover look banged up, but Eric just couldn't tear his eyes away from Brodie. The poor guy looked terrified, probably convinced that Eric had come to fuck him up for running over Logan. He couldn't have the kid... and though Brodie was a grown man, he just gave off the feeling of someone very young and very afraid, even at the same time that his hurt and heartbreak had seemed to age him... thinking that he was about to rip him a new asshole. Thinking that Asher was dead had surely taken it out of him, because from all the information they had, and the way that it felt standing here with him, this man was Asher's other half, his soul mate, the person that had been his whole world. But for whatever reason, the pair weren't together anymore, and Eric wasn't entirely sure what had caused it, but it had very clearly left Brodie with a lot of heartache and pain. But this other thing... whatever it was... was very much a real thing, and something that Eric was at a loss as to how to approach. He couldn't just blurt it out right now anyway. They were trying to get close to Brodie for Asher's sake, and whether he admitted it or not, Eric was at his core, an animal. An animal with a very specific taste, and Brodie was very much that taste, and hunger was a strong driving force.
Still, he kept his composure, and managed a smooth smile of reassurance. "Hello, Brodie," he greeted the young man before his attentions turned to his lover to keep up appearances. "I'm so glad to see you're all right, darling. You nearly gave me the fright of my life. Are you sure you feel okay?" He glanced at Brodie again, his voice smooth. "Thank you for looking after him, love."
"I hit him!" Brodie blurted out, his voice risen and even slightly squeaky. He wasn't keeping it together at all, because frankly this whole thing had freaked him the fuck out and all that kept playing over and over again in his head was the phone call that told him Asher had been hit by a car and was killed. Ever since then, Brodie had been probably the most cautious driver in existence. He hated driving, but with all the equipment he had to drag around for his gigs, he had no choice but to get behind the wheel. After tonight, he wasn't sure he ever would again. "I-I-I- hit him! With my car! I was just... just backing out, and he was there! And I never meant to do it! I didn't even see, because he was just there and I don't think I was going all that fast, but I hit him! A-And there was all this blood and I couldn't find a pulse! There was no pulse! Because cars kills people, you know! They do! They take them away from you and you never see them again and your whole world falls apart!" Tears were once again splashing down Brodie's cheeks as he rambled in distress, and he had backed himself up against the wall by the door like he was really intimidated of what these guys might do to him because of what he did. But it wasn't even that. He just wasn't used to having strangers in his home, and now there were two and they were sort of... prominent. Like how you might feel if you met a powerful celebrity and would be awed by their presence. It didn't make any sense to Brodie and no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't calm his frayed emotions here. He had no idea that they were probably hitting these guys like a sledgehammer, but the more he let himself panic, the worse he seemed to get."
And despite the fact the guy had already assured him they wouldn't involved the authorities, it was just another thing for Brodie to worry about. What if he changed his mind? "Please, please don't call the cops," he begged them, shaking his head as he wiped at his eyes and cheeks with the back of his wrist, sniffling loudly to try to stop the tears. "I'm barely making ends meet and I'll be screwed if I have any sort of record. I-I'm trying to make something of myself, but everything is just so hard and... and... I-I don't really have all that much to live for. All I have left is my music and it's the only thing that means anything to me anymore. But no one is going to give a criminal with a record who h-hits people with their cars the time of day. And if I don't have my gig, I'll have hardly any cash to survive here, and I just... I have to be here. I have to stay in New York. I-I don't know why, but I just have to be. I can't go anywhere and it's really expensive here. So, please don't call the cops. Please," he added again in a sobbed, hoarse whisper when it felt like someone was sitting on his chest, his heart was hurting so much. Fuck, he missed Asher. He tried to put memories of him right locked away deep inside, but now all he could think of was Asher's bloodied and broken body lying left alone on a cold road like Logan had looked... only dead. That was when he broke down even harder, if that was possible, and slid down the wall to sink to the floor, burying his face in his hands when the crying came with earnest.
Well, now Logan just felt like a prized piece of ball fungus. They had no choice but to just sit there and take Brodie's onslaught of emotions, and it was coming so hard and fast that it was actually impossible to pinpoint specific emotions. It was all a jumble, and to come at a Kindred like that was sort of like a scrambled television signal. Where it was usually easy for a Kindred to sense a person's emotions, reactions, responses through their feelings, when there was this much going on, it was hard to get anything but smacked in the face by a massive wave of distress. They couldn't stop it, either. Logan had caused this and they had no choice but to deal with it, and he had to keep reminding himself that it was to protect Asher. It sucked like fucking hell that they had to hurt Asher's one true love, his soul mate, to protect him but by this point, Logan was 100% convinced that the key to Asher's trust was bringing Brodie back into his world. Only, the amount of twists and turns and complications was started to make Logan's own head spin and he was having quite the distinct feelings of deja-vu from when he was losing his memory and brain capacity with the tumour that ultimately took his life. And it would be so much more difficult for Eric because if there was a hunger for Brodie like he suspected, he was going to have to fight it here and maintain utter self-control, or they would both be destined for certain death, whether it be by Eric's brother's orders or by Asher.
He wanted to get up and go give the poor wee soul a hug. He was crushed and broken, and he hadn't even been the one hit by the car. Hearing the rambling he was coming out with, though, it was obvious it was Asher he was referring to and Logan could see now that even if they weren't together, losing Asher had seriously fucked with this guy's head... and his life. They had to do something or he was going to have a nervous breakdown, and shoving that into Asher's path right now would absolutely do more harm than good. There was a risk Asher would take him against his will without control just to stop his pain. That just wouldn't do. But he also had to keep up the ruse he was injured, so he couldn't get out of the chair to comfort him. "Hey, hey... laddie, listen to me. We arenae calling the cops. I used to be one, I know what those fuckers are like. We dinnae need none of that. I'm fine, I dinnae even need the ER. Just calm yourself a wee bit and we can have a wee chat, aye? You havenae got anything to worry about. Eric, why dinnae you get the laddie a wee drink of water and you can tell us why this has all gotten you so upset, buddy. Hush now. Point us in the direction of some Kleenex before you get snot on everything." Normal tears. It almost seemed odd. When Kindred cried, they cried blood because they had no other bodily fluids. Brodie was so blatantly human right now, it was very, very intimidating. Logan realised at that moment just how engulfed in The Masquerade and Kindred world he had become of late.
Eric was trying his damnedest to hold his shit together right now. The hunger was building up deep within him, and he was having to focus every ounce of energy on keeping himself under control. The last thing he needed was to lose control and cost them the last possible chance they had at getting through to Asher. This hunger that he felt for Brodie was far above and beyond any level of hunger that one felt as a human... It wasn't something so easily controlled. It was literally like blood was pouring into shark infested waters, and Eric himself was the shark. "Hey, hey, now," he said, trying to calm himself just as much as he was trying to calm Brodie. His tone was strained, but even as he continued, "We know you didn't mean to, buddy. Logan here told me himself when he called... He wasn't being careful, he wasn't paying attention and he stepped right in front of you. It isn't your fault at all. It's my clumsy darling's fault. You've done nothing wrong, Brodie. You can't blame yourself." But there was no reasoning with the young man, and no doubt in Eric's mind that there was one reason for that, and one reason alone. The boy was terrified, hurting, and literally a mess, and he was so painfully lonely, too... All of that was sort of rushing at Eric at once, and it was almost overwhelming him with the realization that there had once been such a strong connection between Asher and Brodie, and that maybe that connection was still as strong as ever, even if circumstance and time had interrupted it.
Unlike his lover, Eric had nothing like hugging Brodie in his mind whatsoever. Much to the contrary, he was trying to think of ways to keep distance between himself and Brodie. Logan's directions, to go and get Brodie a drink, were a welcome distraction, and he very much took him up on it, moving out to the kitchen to find a glass and fill it with water, before doing a quick visual sweep to see if he could find any tissue to bring into the living room for Brodie. This was fucking ridiculous. He wanted to know what exactly was wrong with the young man, and there was no okay way to ask that question. If he was piquing Eric's senses, he was very sick, but that wasn't something you asked someone randomly, and the fact was, Brodie felt like shit whether he knew he was ill or not. This was suddenly all kinds of complicated, and Eric just sat there as Brodie took the glass of water from him. "Logan's right," he assured him, finding his ability to speak a bit more normal, if only because he was using every ounce of energy to focus on keeping it together. "We don't want any authorities involved or anyone getting hurt. We just want to make sure that you and Logan are both okay. Come on, bud... Let's just talk, okay?" He glanced over at Logan, knowing that his lover would sense that he was very much on edge with Brodie, and would know why. This was pure unadulterated hunger, and that just put a whole new kink in the lines here.
Brodie looked up at Eric, the tears still spilling over. His hand was shaking as he reached up to accept the glass of water with a hoarse, mumble of, "Thank you." Before he took any, he tried wiping his eyes again and sniffling but he sipped the water in hopes it would make him feel at least a little bit better. Why did his life just have to suck so bad? Without Asher, it had just been like some force was working against him and he could never find his feet. He couldn't remember what being happy felt like. Jared was just something he had to try to get back to normal, but it had never felt even remotely close to anything he had with Asher. He didn't love Jared, never had. It was impossible to love anyone but Asher, but Asher was gone and he wasn't coming back, so he had to at least try to live without him, right? And that was all he was doing - trying - because he wasn't succeeding. The more time past, the more it seemed to hurt that Asher was gone. Wasn't it supposed to get better with time? That was a load of shit. He was just really grateful these guys weren't going to call the cops. And did Logan just say he used to be one? Brodie looked at him for a moment, wondering why he wasn't anymore, but he was sort of too terrified to actually ask at this point. What he really wanted to do was curl up in a ball right here on the spot, hug the glass of water in lieu of being able to hug anything else, and cry his eyes out until things stopped hurting again. They just never did, though, so that would be stupid and exhausting. That was what stopped him doing most things like that these days... it was too exhausting.
"I-I'm sorry about everything. I'm useless, I know. I just... s-someone really important to me died not that long ago. He got hit by a car and killed, and the person didn't stop to help him. Maybe if they stopped, they might have been able to save him..." Brodie began in a tiny voice, that part of the whole thing always what bothered him the most. "I don't get how anyone can just... hurt someone like that without a care in the world and not want to help them, and make sure they're okay. To just... just leave him lying there to bleed to death? It was dark, and cold, and he was just left there all alone to die w-without anyone there to hold him or comfort him. And he was amazing, and he was beautiful, and I should never have let him go. But now he's gone forever" he said in a tight whisper when his voice broke and he buried his face into the crook of his arm with another renewed wave of tears.
Logan felt his stomach turn and if he was human, he would have no doubt vomited at that point. He actually had to gulp heavily to try to quell the surge of emotion because he didn't want to lose control here either. But hearing Brodie reference Asher like this was crushing him from the inside out. Asher was his Childer, even if he shared the job with Eric, and this was killing him to hear. He wanted to go over to Brodie and reassure him that Asher very much wasn't all alone when he died, but also that there really would have been no way of saving him. Asher didn't die on impact, but it was barely minutes in the wake of it. He had been an absolute mess, completely smashed up as one would expect when hit by a speeding 4x4 as Asher had been. In fact, if Logan hadn't Embraced him right as he did almost at the point of his dying breath, Asher would have reawaken with the deformities of the accident. Because his heart was still beating when Logan turned him, he was able to reawaken unblemished and with the beauty of a true Toreador. Logan wished he could heap out all the reassurances in the world to Brodie right now, but without outing themselves and outing Asher and revealing The Masquerade right here and now, they couldn't.
It wasn't often Logan was at a loss for words, but this was definitely one of them. He was flooded with guilt over being the one to take Asher, but he also saved him on some level. A level Asher wasn't sure he wanted, and hence the mess they were all in. But he was guilty about having to force Brodie to hit him with a car, because it triggered all this grief and loneliness in the kid. Stirred up all the old, awful feelings. It had been the only way he could have gotten Brodie's scent on him, though, short of sexual assault and Asher being his Childer, he would NEVER had touched Brodie like that, not to mention sex wasn't a necessity for Kindred but merely a way to heighten the thrill of feeding. It was a no-go zone for him. Asher had a soul mate, and that was hands-off as far as Logan was concerned. He might have reawakened a Kindred manslut, but he did have standards and some morals he prided himself on. "It sounds like you havenae had any closure, buddy. What was he like? Where were you when it happened? Had you been together long?" May as well try to get some information about their past in the process, if Brodie would talk about it.
Even in the midst of his hunger, Eric couldn't help but feel for Brodie. The poor guy was completely heartbroken in the loss of his true love, his soul mate. It had been so long since Eric had been mortal, and he'd never known Logan as anything but Kindred, so the concept that Brodie was talking about was a hard one to imagine. There were ways to kill a Kindred, but they were very few, and it wasn't a given that they would die like it was with mortals. Nor was the concept of growing old together something that would even occur to them, because they didn't age. But it was clear just from talking to Brodie that this was heartbreak and disappointment stemming from certain dreams and expectations that he would share a mortal life with Asher, not have him taken and lost to death so young. Like Logan, Eric was wishing he could comfort Brodie with the knowledge that they had. It almost felt wrong letting him suffer like this when they knew the truth that would rescue him from all of this heartache. But that was a lot of information that they couldn't give him yet. They knew nothing about this kid except that he was still in love with Asher, and that he was obviously very ill, whether he knew that or not.
"There, there," Eric comforted, trying to be kind but without breaking the careful control he'd built over himself in the situation. This wasn't a joke, and if he broke, Brodie might very well find out more than he needed to know and all too quickly. "We're very sorry to hear about your beloved. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose Logan here. That's not meant to make you feel guilty about the car thing, either. He should've paid attention and been more careful. But he's going to be just fine, and you didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't your fault, Brodie. And you didn't leave him there to die. You can't blame yourself. Logan will be okay after some rest and a bit of medical attention, and we won't even ask you to pay for it. It was an accident. I'm so sorry, though, that my other half's foolishness and lack of paying attention ended up causing you so much trouble. Please don't worry, Brodie. We're going to make sure that this doesn't come back to bite you."
Brodie felt like a stupid dick for getting so upset in front of a pair of strangers like this, but once the floodgates opened on his feelings for Asher, it was absolutely impossible for him to get an easy hold back on them. This was why he tried to keep them shoved to the back of his heart so much, and it was why Caleb helped him do that. It might not be healthy, but it was easy. Caleb never wanted to see him hurting more than he already did. He had stuck by Brodie's side through the whole terrible shock and grief when the news of Asher's death came. But the only way Brodie dealt with it was by not directly dealing with it, so Caleb supported that. They could mostly keep a working friendship, hanging out, watching sports, having Star Wars marathons... the same ol' they always had been. But underneath all that, there was this deep, painful scarring and a gaping hole within Brodie where Asher was missing. When they had just broken up, and Brodie made the horribly painful choice to do it when Asher had changed, become a different person Brodie didn't think he knew or understood anymore, it had been manageable. There had always been that hope inside that one day, his old Asher would come back to him and they would reunite, and be together forever. Soul mates. But as soon as Asher had died, that was ripped away, and Brodie had never recovered. If Caleb was here, he would probably be close to thumping both these dudes for dragging up the pain for Brodie when they had worked so hard to keep it buried. For once, Brodie was glad Caleb wasn't there right at that moment.
He wiped at his eyes with the balled up bunch of soggy Kleenex threaded between his shaky fingers and then carefully took some sips of the water before he put the glass down on the floor beside him. He looked at the sodden papery mess in his hand, sniffling loudly and wetly before he finally spoke up in small, teary and lost voice. "H-He was amazing. The most amazing and beautiful person you could ever meet. I'm not even exaggerating. You might know him. Most people in New York probably do. He was a fashion designer, and was so beautifully talented and ambitious, that he took the world by storm. But he... he was always just my Asher. At least, he was until he wasn't. He... h-he changed, see. He came here, and became someone I didn't know anymore. It was like he cared more about his work than me, and forgot me. I had to make appointments to even have a conversation with him. I would sit at home and just... wait for him. And I would have waited for him forever. I would have, but he... never came back to me." The tears flooded again and he covered his face with the tissues for a couple of minutes, crying softly and working to regain his composure.
"We were together since we were seventeen and it worked. It worked so fucking well at first. Then it stopped. I was supposed to come here and be with him, but he was on fire. He was a force to be reckoned with and there was no room for me. So, I broke up with him and went to LA with my best friend. That's where I was when it happened. When I... I got that awful phone call." He stopped, hiccuping a little when his voice broke. "Dead. Hit by a car. Never coming back to me. But I just can't let him go, no matter how much I try. It's like part of me has died too and I can't function without it. We were supposed to be together forever."
Suddenly, Logan was having second thoughts about all of this. It had seemed like a perfect plan to begin with, a way to get Asher to respond to them. But now hearing how deeply connected to all of this Brodie still was, and that the feelings were still very much alive despite believing Asher to be dead, Logan didn't know if he could go through with setting Asher off into a frenzy of passion the moment he sensed Brodie scent all over him. The problem here, as Logan had suspected all along, was that the love between Asher and Brodie had never died. The situation had fallen apart and it had crashed and burned, but the love still burned underneath it all. This had to be the reason Asher killed himself. That had always been something Logan had never been sure of. Asher was suicidal, but they never knew why. Asher wasn't about to tell them. He never once even got close to giving them any information on why he had killed himself. All they had known, and that was from sensing his emotions when he had still been human, was that he had been miserable. Deeply depressed. Eric had hungrily desired him too, which told Logan Asher had brushed with death from an illness in the past... but what if that illness had been psychological and not physical? That had never even crossed his mind. What if Asher had tried to kill himself before? That the suicidal ideation from clinical depression was why Eric hungered for him so badly? It was still an illness that could lead to death. Not even Eric himself had probably considered his own taste in that light before, though. Hearing Brodie here now, Logan just couldn't shake the notion that this guy, heartbroken and lost without his soul mate, was exactly a carbon copy of Asher and why Asher had taken his own life.
And that fucking complicated crap even more. Was Asher's suicide one of lost love and loneliness? And if so, why had he chosen that night, leaving a massive societal party dripping with big names and money, to do it? Why the hell didn't anything make any sense? But if Brodie was the catalyst of Asher taking his own life, Brodie could ultimately trigger a fuck load more complication responses for Asher in Kindred form. Especially if he thought Logan had been cavorting with him. They needed to abort mission. As soon as they got home, Logan needed to scrub himself and burn his clothing to try and rid himself of Brodie's sense, or they could all be facing an horrific turn of events no one needed. Goddamnit, that had been his only hopeful lead to connecting with Asher too. Now what?
He watched Eric, with Brodie not looking at either of them as he spoke. If Eric so much as touched Brodie or brushed against him, he probably wouldn't be able to control himself. If there was no physical contact, he should be okay. Hopefully. He couldn't afford to fuck up with Ben already suspicious and on his tail over everything. "Aye... definitely know of him, laddie. Eric here practically has shares in his label, he wears it so much. He's been with him at a party once or twice over the time. Wasnae there a rumour he might still be alive, though? I know what it's like to lose someone you love, buddy. Isnae any worse pain than that." This, however, was making Logan wonder more and more about mating with Eric. What if something happened, and he lost him for good? He couldn't handle that. He'd want to do exactly what Asher had done.
TBC...