Chapter Text
Breathe in. Breathe out.
‘Wonder where she is-Awful weather, just-Have to get home, don’t cry until you’re ho-Over the goddamn place, can’t find a moment of peace- Don’t forget the library book, can’t afford another fine.’ The familiar whine between thoughts howls between his ears. Harsh wind bites into his cheeks, his fingers stiff in his jacket pockets.
Pull back, look at the whole thing first. Then zoom in.
‘Tosser, don’t know where she gets off’
‘Just wait til she sees this! Oh I can see her tail wagging already!’
‘1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. 1-‘
Find the preferred colour of thread, pick through. Search, search, search, through the high pitched whistling. The windy subway station.
‘Don’t drop the plates, don’t drop the plates, don’t-‘
Follow the tracks. Closer, he can feel the warm air inside. Fois grais, ribeye steak, expensive wine, lemon tart. He starts to see colours behind his screwed shut eyelids.
Closer.
‘Rich twat.’ Makes him snort, a waitress obviously fed up with her clientele. He loses the thread amongst miscellaneous tangled yarn for his giggles. Searches again for the yellow.
Feels the cold hard brick through the back of his jacket. Tips his head back as a fine mist of rain sprays onto his face, a pleasant cleanse.
‘Need this to go through smoothly-7-5-2, what a crock of shit- Should wrap up nicely, a bite to eat and soon, oh yes-‘
Odd thing to say in a restaurant, but he’s found his yellow thread.
He mentally thumbs at his thread, twirls it around his finger as he listens in on the useless scraps of the conversation going on right behind him.
It’s the tail end really and they've all stood up. they're ready to go and Guy’s just barely smoothing over the thoughts. Man, maybe he should tell them he’s not cut out for this shit. Sure he can read minds, but what good is it when it takes him all of ten minutes to differentiate between the thoughts of the guy taking a shit in the bathroom three buildings away, and the actual important conversation going on right behind him.
‘Must’n’t get home too late, must get a move on-Huh-Treacle tart would be good, oh yes-That’s interesting-‘
Guy often picks through the thoughts flurrying around him meticulously, envisioning a pile of different yarns all in a tangle and he's working his way through to the right colour. The thin, soft yellow one is what he needs right now. Pluck it, pull it, wind it up for later.
He deposits the sunny yarn of information in a little pigeon hole catalogued under ‘Archie’ with the rest of his yarns for later, turning back to the pile.
A foreign hand joins his sorting. Guy’s brow furrows.
“Who do we have here?”
The lightbulb illuminating Guy’s mental room shatters with a sharp pop. His table is pulled away, his chair vanishes and the floor drops out from under him. He's plunged into darkness. He gasps, eyes still closed, attracting curious thoughts from curious people and he hears their opinions and assumptions briefly in his head but he can’t focus on that, ‘cuz someone was in his head-
His eyes snap open, staring straight ahead onto the dark wet streets of London with the fear of soon-to-be roadkill or perhaps the disposable character of a horror movie. ‘He’s right behind me isn't he?’
The voice is distinctly amused, warmed with humor and sharpened by an insatiable need to know and Guy whips his head around. He damn near loses his balance to check, just to check and something shoots through him at the man he bumped into from earlier looking right at him through the glass. His eyes widen, his shoulders pitch up to hug his ears.
Fingers tangle in his pockets, attempting to work out his stress. Guy scrambles away, a presence still inside his head softly rumbles his laughter. Guy’s chest feels like it's sweetly caving in, a fluttering feeling flooding his veins and he hunches over to hide the feeling, throwing his hood back up and flinching at the sound of the glass door opening. The splash of water his shoes' heavy descent creates is loud against the sudden silence of the voices. All of them shut out. Guy feels his legs burn against the strain to move faster, to fight against the need to crane his neck and look behind him.
‘Where are you going?’ The thought, gentler, slides over his mind like a thumb against the apple of a soft cheek.
Guy tries his best to drown out the thoughts making themselves familiar with his brain. Digs his hands forcefully back into the pile of mismatched yarn, bringing back the silenced voices.
‘Not again, not again, oh she’ll really kill me now-How about movie night when we get home? I’d like to watch Wall.E again-Want a puppy so badly, would take such good care of it-Where’d he go? Oh, there he is-I need to renew my passport before my holiday, must do that this week, yes-What’s going to work? Teeaaam work!- Don’t block me out, now. You’ve been horribly rude.’
His sneakers can’t protect his socks from soaking, he grounds himself on the deeply unpleasant cold squelch and the stench of a freshly rained London.
Guy messes up the yarn and hides under the threads.
‘Beans, bread, peanut butter, tomatoes, olives-Did I leave the stove on? Did I lock my door?-Don’t step on the cracks dont step on-I’d be a heavenly person today, I thought I was mistaken.’ Guy focuses on the moody blue thoughts singing as he ducks down a dimly lit street, then running down a crowded road and looking behind him and all around frantically.
‘I thought I told you to leave me. While I walk down to the beach-‘
‘Cute thread you’ve found here. Blue?’
Faster. Faster, Guy.
‘Tell me how does it feel?’
‘It’s interesting. Usually people think of radio’s or shields. Maybe the occasional guitar strings vibrating. Yarn’s a new one though. Leaves you awfully unprotected, kid.’
‘Get out.’ He wills away the intrusive hand, staring up through the darkness of his flimsy hidey hole. Adrenaline and blood rushing round and round his body. Fuckfuckfuckshitfuck.
His heart rabbits in his chest, skittering sharply sideways into an alleyway.
‘When your heart grows cold.’
The recent rain shower makes the slick bricks shine against the black night, banishing any semblance of a hiding spot along the concrete and tarmac.
Guy grabs a red paint coated railing at about the same time he loses his blue thread, the song finishing. He ducks into the underground, crosses over to a tube, tapping his card in and coming out the other side hoping he lost whoever was tailing.
His heart persists, not allowing him to breath properly as the night air becomes reacquainted with his lungs.
From the rush back up to the surface, he feels almost dizzy with the adrenaline and change in lighting. Multicolour spots of green, pink and purple dance with the residual lights of the tube.
Slinking into another alleyway, running as complicated as he can, he zig zags for a while. Ends up in some alleyway and it's dark and tucked away. Guy slides down the wall, hovering just above the wet ground and for a while just breathes, frantic and irregular. Balancing on the balls of his feet, he rethinks all his life choices.
He can go home, Yeah, he can leave. Practice law like he wanted to, and struggle with his powers forever with his nose in papers. (Oh so tempting. He does adore being alone with his work) The other, more insane option is to follow the excitement the Talamasca has given him, to possibly take control of his powers, maybe even expand, find his-
“Ooohh, such a complicated decision to make.”
The cold bucket tips over his head. Guy flinches and scrambles to get up on unsteady legs.
“Don’t do that.” Guy spits, glaring. The dark figure throws up its hands in surrender, jovial by nature.
“Calm down, kid, just making conversation… You quite done having your, ah, little breakdown yet?” Jasper puts his hands in his pockets and his head falls slightly to one side with an expectant air.
“Not too sure…” Distrust is the mortar to the stones and bricks of intrigue lining his walls as he glares up.
Attempting to adjust his eyes, all he can make out is the outlines of wispy, wild hair and a large, imposing figure. Power behind wide shoulders and a refined look to the line of his trouser pants. He stands in front of a street light, silhouetted by a pale yellow, the details of him are sharply plunged into darkness.
Reaching out with his mind is useless. He encounters a wall. A thick wall. “Huh.”
“Yeah, all locked up tight, but I've gotta say, never seen you around.”
“‘m not from around…” Guy wets his lips. Opens his mouth again.
“Are you a vampire?” Guy rolls the word around in his mouth like he still doesn’t believe in them. The man just laughs heartily, head tipping back and Guy has the distinct sense that this man baring his neck is doing it to show exactly how trivial mortality is.
“New in town, cute and curious…Yes. Is that a deal breaker?”
His distrustful, surprised silence answers for him. The vampire gives a rich chuckle, rumbling his chest.
“Well, you, you're not a vampire… But you're something else, and unclaimed too… Very dangerous to walk around with that pretty little head unguarded”
Guy ducks his head, that feeling sprouting again, a blooming lily, death flower.
“Cute.” The vampire remarks and Guy bristles. Nose wrinkling in anger.
‘Like a spitting kitten’ he does catch a surface thought from the man but it's obviously only to rile him up. Damn him, it’s working.
The man regards him “The names Jasper.”
“… Guy” Jasper inaudibly laughs, his shoulders jostling, staring into bright blue eyes with sharp icy stalactites.
“Well, Guy, are you allowed to be out this late?” Jasper strides closer. Guy holds his ground until he deems the vampire too close and steps back, feeling the idea of a wall behind him but not quite hitting it yet. His heart seizes.
“Do I look like I have a leash to you?” And oh, that was a whole lot of interest in Jasper's eyes that Guy did not want to get involved in.
“You would look nice with a collar, don't you think?” Guy’s heart drops.
“I-“
“Nice thick leather, I'm thinkin’ cobalt blue, to match your wide, desperate eyes.” Guy flushes with indignation.
“You can’t-“ Jasper pressed in closer.
The sudden step having Guy’s back meet the wall with a shuddering gasp.
“Hmmm, no… Cerulean? Azure? You’re really very pretty.”
He almost can't hear the words past the blood pumping through his veins. Jasper leans in, frigid nose brushing against the side of a warm nosebridge.
Guy’s warm body pumping with rushing blood tenses further. A rabbit underneath the wolf’s paw.
“Scared?” A shuddering breath not unlike the breeze through a rickety, old door leaves him. The threshold gives a great tremble as the door slams in sudden defensive anger.
“Fuck you.”
Jasper tutts “Ohh, none of that, boy.” A clawed hand reaches forward to ruffle unruly curls, a tad damp from the rain and running.
Guy’s breath hitches at the tone and the scraping against his scalp. The look Jasper levels at him and the back of a nail caressing his cheek makes him flush. Almost as if his blood is rushing up to meet the claw.
The vampire just keeps at it, observing and drinking up every reaction. Fuck, get a grip, man.
Something glints in the dark and teeth are revealed. The curtains of his lips pulling back the indication of something starting. Guy can't look away.
Jasper crowds even further, impossibly further, his embroidered velvet coat drags in all the darkness from the night, wrapping around Guy, cocooning him as if to prepare him to sprout wings. The street light from behind the vampire gets eaten until the yellow halo fizzles away.
Poorly timed arousal pools in the human’s gut, twisting his belly up in knots as he watches the vampire with wide eyes and clenching hands.
“I’m gonna have lots of fun with you, kid.” His fangs glint in the dark, unsheathed from his mouth in a grin.
“Still wanna be a lawyer?”
Guy’s jaw trembles in the darkness.
“Yeah, I think what you need right now is some sleep.”
Eyes roll back, the curtain falls and all Guy can hear is a repetitive instruction, over and over like an announcement speaker in a supermarket.
Do not engage. Do not engage. Do not engage.
The darkness carries him away.
The first thing consciousness grants him is the feeling of soft sheets and plush pillows beneath him. He sinks into them with a sigh until a gasp is wrenched out of him, his hand flying up to one eye to cup it. A splintering pain spearing through his right eye and bursting into fractals throughout his brain.
His own groan fills the room, he feels like he’s on a particularly high building, vertigo swaying him this way and that and his threads are all over the place.
No longer loosely tangled to allow him to switch from one stream to the next, (He can get carried away and struggle to leave the person's brain, as he discovered age 12 when he couldn’t leave Katie Brown’s thoughts about the boy they were both crushing on. Whether or not Guy’s crush was a result of mind-melding remains a mystery.) Instead some are fraying, others knotted… One has chewing gum on it?
Whoever’s messed with his threads, he’s going to give them a shit ton of lip if he can convince them he’s not insane and really, actually psychic.
It’s only after he nods to himself, satisfied with the planned out threat, that he notices that whoever messed up his junk, would’ve had to be like him to pull any of it off.
He jerks up in the bed, the right side of his face scrunching in pain again before he’s using the other eye to take stock of what’s around him.
Seeing his jacket and flannel folded at the foot of the bed, he looks down at himself, startled. Relief floods him at seeing his body still dressed in his shirt and jeans.
It doesn’t take much longer to notice the hum.
He would’ve assumed the noise to be coming from outside, maybe from the walls. A result of electrical activity, like a fridge or something. But he knows that hum. It has a weight to it, sits on his tongue heavy like an aftertaste that just won’t leave. His head tilts to the side.
The night comes back to him in uneven amounts and hardly in a chronological order. He sees the black night swallowing him, sees a yellow halo. Sees a yellow thread, his own fingers twisting it around his forefinger like an old telephone cord. The next few scraps of information are revealed as if fire burns pockets through the black pages, revealing photographs and text alike underneath.
Eyes, iced over eyes with a warm amusement.
Who do we have here?
He’d followed him blindly, enraptured like a fish on a line until he hit glass.
Water. A splash. His shoes squelching grossly, a welcome distraction. Slick brick walls kiss the back of his head painfully.
Tell me how does it feel when your heart grows cold?
A cup in his mouth, a phone in hand, the self pointed screen placing the targets in clear view behind him. A sharp whine, followed up swiftly by a comforting hum. It was heavy then, it’s heavy now.
Rumbles in his bones, a primal fear, a primal itch scratched. It had turned his head, lowered his arm.
The hum rises in pitch before a hiss breaks out in his head, shattered glass leaving his ears in the dark. Utter silence, utter bliss.
The man he’d been searching for enters his memory with velocity.
Frosted over eyes, trim black fabric cloaking him, contrasting his paleness. Him.
Unnaturally long nails. Thick and sharp, they reach for his yellow thread. The measly amount Guy had managed to steal, catalogue and file away for later. He sees a thin smirk and fuzzy yellow fibres caught in one claw, not unlike a cat with a yellow downy feather in its teeth.
The picture of guilt with zero remorse.
Guy’s memory goes dark after that.
Guys head falls into his hands, cool fingers sliding over his fevered forehead and into the forest of fire in his hair. Pain bloomed and sparked in his eye sockets as the heels of his palms pressed into them.
‘Well that was stupid.’
He’s a real class act of an agent, not only managing to lose Archie but overlook him entirely in favour of some random. He wasn’t in the files, wasn’t a target at all but that noise.
The strangers' sound, the creature's call was terrifying as much as it was tantalizing. Guy couldn’t hear a single thought from him. Not unless the man had cracked open a window, eased open a door. Guy hadn’t encountered many who could do that, aside from Helen and a few trained from the Talamasca.
Him though, he was something else.
It reminds him there are people out there much more powerful than him. He’d let Helen’s words go to his head, let them make him stupid enough to walk right into shit with someone who could make him sleep with just the word. His encounter with Burton flashes by him like the cars below that night. Fast and exhilarating. He never wanted to feel like that again and yet he finds himself in London playing spy like a goddamn kid when all he really wants is-
A buzz.
He does his best to shut down his thoughts, grabs a handful of them and shoves them in his back pocket. Looking up with one eye at the man who just opened the door, likely he looks every part the kid caught stealing candy.
The gentle presence from last night caresses his mind again and Guy can’t help the reactionary bristle he gives.
‘I can feel that. Outta my head, asshole.’
‘Charming and observant. That’s my Guy.’
Guy groans at the typical joke. As if he hasn't heard that one before.
Jasper draws an unnecessary breath that Guy assumes must be for his comfort.
“So. Talamasca. You one of them?”
“Yeah.”
Jasper looks pleasantly surprised, probably expecting a knee-jerk lie. Fortunately for the vampire, Guy had zero common sense about him and he’d never liked lies much, anyway.
“What were you supposed to do? What were you there for?”
“Listen in on that guy you were with. Talamasca wants to know why he's in town and if there's something big coming. I was just sent for recon.”
Jasper gives an indulgent smile.
“Oh cute, well you fucked up both of those.”
“I'm aware.” Guy stands, reveling in the lack of dizziness, used to getting blackout drunk or high but not without consequences the next morning.
“So why were you there?” Guy brushes off his jeans, hoping to cast away the embarrassment.
“Why should I tell you?”
“Hey. I’ve been nothing but honest to you.”
A silver eyebrow raises with amusement dancing in his eyes once again and Guy can’t help but marvel at the fact he thought vampires ought to be cold, not so animated.
The vampire tilts his head to the side in acquiescence. Fair enough, he says with a gentle dip forward of his head, a splay of the forward facing palms at his hips.
“He’s after something, we’re all after something. We need a book.”
His brows pinch together, mouth flapping uselessly for a moment.
“…A book?” The words leave him like they’re stuck in molasses.
The vampires chest hitches in a short laugh.
“Yes, it’s very important. To the supernatural, it’s an archive of stolen information, to the Talamasca, it’s an extraction and extermination guide.” Jasper lets the information sink in as Guy’s incredulity morphs into concern.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. So all of us are scrambling around like headless chickens. And we aren’t just trying to avoid your little agency, we’re avoiding the rats, too.”
His eyes fixed on the carpet, Guy startles when a hand falls onto his shoulder.
“That’s where you come in-“ “Huh?” “Yeah, come on, who’s gonna suspect you? You're a powerful psychic, Talamasca and you're just the perfect little spy.” A hand ruffles through his hair.
“Cute and unsuspect in curls and big blues. fell right into my lap too.” He sounds a little too pleased with himself, Guy glaring up at him from the bed.
“I didn’t fall into your lap, you quite literally chased my ass across London.”
The vampire waves a hand. “Details, details. I didn’t chase you further than two underground stops and a few leisurely strides, kid. God, how much prep did they give you? 48 hours? A hope and a prayer?”
“A week.”
Pale blue eyes level him with a genuine sympathetic look, cracking through the cheery attitude.
“That little? Oh, my Guy, that's not very nice of them. Leaving their dame out in plain sight without pawns is a dangerous way to play chess, my boy.”
“Not your boy…” Guy pushes through gritted teeth. Jasper doesn’t seem to heed the warning.
“We’ll see. So! What do you want?”
“What do I want?” Guy parroted.
“You joined the talamasca. Vampire fetish? Or something else?”
Blood rushes up to the skin of his cheeks, a brief worry fills him about the vampire taking a keen interest, but when he looks up through his lashes at the older man, he seems far more interested in his eyes. Guy looks down at the floor.
“I…” Rubbing his sweaty palms on his jeans, Guy mentally places himself in the therapists offices he found himself in all throughout his childhood. It made it easier to get it all out when he entered the mindset that if he just spat it out they’d leave him alone and pat themselves on the back, their information bellies full.
“I’m not the only psychic in my family. My mom, She was like me, and when I was 9 she died of an overdose. Left me behind for the foster system to chew up and spit out a few times. At least that’s what I thought.” He breathes deeply.
“Now I know better. She’s alive, she’s… She’s alive and on the run from the Talmasca. Helen called her a fugitive. Said she did ‘a very bad thing.’” His poor imitation of Helen’s accent makes Jasper chuckle, Guy bites the grin forming off of his lips.
“I… I need to find her. She knew these powers, knew me. She’s all I have left, and the Talamasca took her away. So now I’m so close to seeing her again and they’re trying to tell me she's this… Evil criminal and… I don’t know. I don’t want to be here, messing up whatever it is you’re doing, but they’ve orchestrated my entire life.” His emotions burst through the speech, thin and frantic.
“They’d find me if I left, Jasper and I’m…” He leaves out his terror, trying to rely more on his anger and the injustice. His deep hurt, but the fear isn’t lost in translation.
“I’m tired of the lies…” His voice wavers, silencing himself.
Long fingernails briefly scrape against his scalp, a shiver racking through Guy despite himself.
Looking up, Jasper’s eyes have softened, the lines usually crinkled in mirth now dragged down by gravity with the weight of feathers. It’s a surprisingly soft face.
Weren’t vampires supposed to be the bad guys? The apex predators, the monsters under the bed? He shakes his head, dislodging the train of thought. He’s here for his mom.
The nails scratch at him for his attention.
“You’re a lawyer aren’t you?”
“How-? No, I don’t even want to know. Yes. I am.”
“You’re a smart boy, tell me, Guy. Why am I the villain?” Shame colours his cheeks again before the vampire graces him with a smile. “It’s okay, you’re curious, not malicious. Why is every vampire the villain?”
Guy breathes, stepping back and ordering what he knows. He didn’t have an answer for the bigger question- Too new to this world to allow himself to speak for the whole. But he did know Jasper’s actions. How he felt about the vampire, his character witnesses wouldn’t be enough in a court of law.
“You took over this building. And you’re- You’re doing something to the real owner, what are you doing to him?”
“Relax- It’s a little quid pro quo… He works for me, I give him my blood.”
“Why would you do that?”
“He has the big C, he’s dyin’. Vampire blood heals.”
“So you’re healing him for what exactly?”
“To keep the place running with me in it- Better me on the inside than scrambling around out there waiting for any moment when the exterminators roll out with their rat poison and iron muzzles.”
‘Muzzles?’ Guy scrunches his face slightly in confusion, cocking his head to the side and looks up at Jasper. He meets iced over eyes that look upon him with the sympathy one might a naive child or an animal dying in the road. Never stood a chance, the vampire seemed to say.
He ducks his head again, squeezing his eyes shut to think.
Guy’s hands bury themselves in his threads, tangling in between his fingers whilst he worries his bottom lip in thought. He’s scraping a nail on a sparkly, fluffy pink thread when the thought lights up in his head. In his mind, he turns and plucks the yellow thread out of his ‘Archie’ pigeon hole. Twines it around his middle finger a few times, fiddling.
His memories came more linearly this time, more awake and aware. When it finally came to mind, his head snapped up.
“…You wanted to feed that night. Did- Did you fucking drink from me?” His hand shoots up to his neck, covering it at first as if it were actively squirting blood everywhere, then moves to searching for twin puncture marks.
Jasper’s head tilts, a perplexed look distorting his features.
“No? And let me get this straight- That’s just now occurred to you? Your survival instincts are shot to bits, kid. Who raised you?”
“Questionable people.” Is the deadpan answer Jasper gets.
“Evidently. Your mindscape, the threads… Where'd that come from? It really does leave you awfully unprotected.”
Guy hesitates. His first instinct is to be wary, but thinking about it, Jasper wouldn’t have to let him know if he was snooping around. It’s a violation, sure, but it’s not a threat, either. He mulls the thought around his mouth, chewing on nothing and licking at his molars.
The older man seems to mistake his rumination for suspicion or reluctance.
“Really kid, I'm not asking for sinister reasons.”
“Sounds like something someone with sinister reasons would say.” Guy teases, a short smile on his lips, looking up at Jasper.
“Fair. But think about it, you've no shields to box your own mind in, you're wide open and so are your threads. Your little pigeon hole with the yellow thread? What if I just took it? I’m not gonna! But what if? Do you lose the information?”
He never thought of it that way…
“I went to a therapist, they told me to sort my thoughts by thread, or by filing cabinets. Maybe a library…”
“This therapist. State or paid for?
“State.”
“Talamasca.”
Guy flinches. He’d told Jasper that his whole life had been a set path since his mom hit the road, but this? He hadn’t fully considered what that meant. That he might’ve been well and truly… Primed.
His thoughts drift, trusting the vampire enough not to maul his face whilst he dove into the deep end of his head and memory.
Honey-brown chunky knit thread is pulled out of a drawer. It’s incredibly short and couldn’t be used for much at all. He’d kept it anyway. He runs his fingers over the fraying piece and recalls a loud voice. ‘They’re using you, kid.’ The thread unravels some more under his fiddling. The thread reminds Guy of thick, exposed electrical cables.
“They’re fattening you up like a pig for slaughter.” Guy’s wrenched back out of his little mental desk by the regretful voice across the room from him.
“Or maybe a very expensive, time consuming tracking chip. Maybe you even come included with a hard drive, your threads.
“Tell me this, if they can track you down, get in your head and take your threads away from you once you’re too far gone… Are they gonna bother to save you? ‘Cuz to me it sounds like leaving you to die would be no sweat off their backs.”
The mention of sweat seems to trigger Guy’s body, as if it’s gained permission to stress the hell out from the mere mention of the word.
Stress has always made him lash out.
“And what do you suppose I do then, huh? Run from them forever and hope me and my mom have similar enough thought processes that we bump into each other? Double book the same air b-n-b?” He sounds harsher than he wants to, panic claws at his shoulders like puppet strings and tries to tug him towards apology.
“No.” Jasper soothes, bringing a hand up as if to touch Guy but decides against it at the twitchy look the human has. “No I don’t think that.”
“Then what?”
“Shack up with me.”
The vampire doesn’t allow his mouth to even consider opening.
“If you join me, you get the added benefit of vampire protection, and I get your psychic abilities. We help each other. I help you sort out how to keep your threads safe, you help me get the book. If we get the book, I get my people safe, you get your momma’s location. We all leave happy.”
Guy’s open mouth shuts with an audible click.
He breathes steadily, dragging in breaths as if it’ll acclimatise him to taking in new ideas.
He finds just one issue.
“If we get that book, we find my mom… I’ll just be leading the Talamasca straight to her. They know what I really want, hell, they assigned an older woman to me, probably ‘cuz they knew.” Fingerpads dig into his nose bridge and the corners of his eyes.
“We won’t get by on just the book… We need this whole thing to come down before I get my mom and you get true safety.”
He misses the curl of the vampire's lips, drowning in his own thoughts.
His own thoughts, for once. Guy huffs a laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Ah… Psychic stuff, just don’t remember the last time I’ve been lost in my own thoughts.”
Jasper indulges him with a smile.
“Then we’d better get started on sharpening up your mental forces, hm?” He holds out a hand.
When Guy gets up to stand face-to-face, hand in hand, he can’t help the shiver when claws press into the back of his hand in the binding gesture.