Double Devil


by Aidan Boyle
1307914998|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover (updated 1307915123|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover) | 0 comment(s)

IC Date: May 19, 2011 — Early Evening
This episode takes place following the log A Night of Revelations

“I simply don’t understand why you have to go now and why you can’t take a few more days to prepare.” Kim follows Aidan down the stairs of the flat, watching as he parks his small suitcase by the front door. “We have an important catering event this weekend, Aidan -”

“I know you can handle it, Kim.” The vampire doesn’t even glance her way as he heads into the main sitting room. “You can handle everything without me for months if you needed to do so. That’s what I pay you for.”

This is one of those times when Kim bristles with absolute frustration and indignation. Aidan is being cryptic and tight-lipped, and the only thing Kim was initially able to get out of him was that he’s going away for ‘business.’ Considering that she manages his business, a little more prodding revealed that it was ‘personal business’ and then ‘vampire business.’ It was that last addition that has her a bit concerned.

In all the time Kim has known Aidan, he has made a point to stay out of Vampire politics. He told her once - and he was as suitably sotted at the time as Aidan has ever been known to get and even then it didn’t last long - that the politics are a headache and he prefers to simply live and enjoy life and not worry about playing those types of games. Naturally, he never chose to explain anything about it to her, and until now, Kim’s never had reason to wonder.

“Yes,” Kim follows him at a slow clip. There’s no need to hurry along behind like a puppy begging for attention, she knows that he is going to the bar to make himself a drink. “But who is going to handle you?”

Aidan looks up from pouring a glass of scotch. “I did manage to take care of myself for centuries before I found you, Kim.” He lifts the glass and takes a drink, blue eyes sparkling over the rim as he regards her. “I think that I’ll manage a few days on my own outside of the country.”

“And I think that you’ve likely no idea how much you’ve come to depend on me.”

There’s a laugh, and then he’s standing in front of her faster than any human could. Kim doesn’t step back, but there is a reflexive blink and flinch. Human senses really were not designed to process movement and motion like that. “That’s where you’d be wrong, Kimmy.” Aidan leans in and his lips brush against her cheek, dragging back to her ear and Kim feels that tugging rise and melting heat in her gut that she always feels around the insufferable arrogant demon when he behaves like this.

“I’m so very well aware of just how much I do need you. I would be so lost without you.” The whisper of words actually feel as though they’re caressing her ear, and Kim tightens her hand into a fist, nails digging deeply into her palm until it smarts from pain. She is alternately annoyed and fascinated with why she responds to him in such a way; yes, he’s incredibly beautiful and simply oozes sensuality - when he’s not being a petulant teenager or arrogant prick - though she knows that it is partly something innate to his nature, and partly that she wasn’t left so untouched by his gift in the early days of their acquaintance.

“You’re full of shite, Aidan.” No way to hide her reactions, not from him, but Kim has mastered schooling herself over the years. It’s a surface game, surely, but one in which Aidan never (seldom) calls her bluff.

He laughs again, stepping away from her and for a moment, the tension and consternation that have been etched into his face for the past two days are absent and the Irishman appears to be his normal, arrogant, playful self. Kim much prefers him that way. If Vampire politics make him harder, sharper - showing his true age in a way that can’t be described in mere words — she would much rather he continue to stay out of that arena.

Kim knows that the door buzzer will sound moments before it does. She doesn’t realize that she knows, that she has even registered the subtleties of Aidan’s behavior as the Vampire’s attention slowly shifts to the door. Or that her attention has causally followed his until the buzzer chimes, filling the flat with a low ringing chime.

“Expecting someone?” Kim asks.

Aidan’s brows knit together. “No.”

Again he moves with inhuman grace and speed, somehow depositing his glass of scotch on the kitchen counter before moving to the door and unlocking it. One upon a time she asked him why he seldom, if ever, checks the security peek hole and he told her its because if he can hear them before the buzzer sounds, then chances are they aren’t attempting to be stealthy. Kim’s not sure she buys into that philosophy, but she’s not an almost four hundred year old Vampire.

There is then, a shift in Aidan’s stance as he swings the door open, his shoulders rolling from tense to near immediate relaxation. Kim can’t see the person on the other side of the door, but she hears a rolling cadence of what sounds to be French, albeit in an accent and dialect that she’s never heard before.

When the vampire half-steps, half-staggers back — Kim’s visual cues take a moment to catch up to the speed of the movements - like trying to decide which racing vehicle crossed the finish line first - he has an armful of woman and there is a somewhat bored looking young blonde male standing idly to one side.

The armful of woman is a literal description because the darkly tanned brunette is fully wound around Aidan. Her skirt is hiked to her hips, her legs round around his waist and joined at the mouths, the pair doesn’t even seem cognizant of anyone - or anything else - around them. As demonstrated by the rattling of the pictures in their frame and the tinkling of things on the bookcases as Aidan crashes them into the nearest wall, the woman’s body pressed between his own and the wall.

Kim cuts her eyes to the young blonde who seems entirely unaffected by the whole display. He’s a handsome one, tall and broad in the shoulders with clear blue eyes… on second inspection, Kim realizes he’s not so much unaffected as he is … vacant. He has that look about him, the one that she’s seen so many times after chasing out one of Aidan’s nightly diversions.

Glamoured, Kim recognizes.

“Aidan?” Kim calls. She folds her arms beneath her breasts, tapping her fingertips against her elbow.

No response is forthcoming, but Kim doesn’t really expect one. She walks to the bar and makes herself a drink, waiting another minute and then another before crossing the room again to watch Aidan behaving like a hormonal driven teenager sneaking a snog. Kim can’t decide whether the situation is comical or disturbing, and she’s still sitting the fence until the moment the woman’s hands begin to claw at Aidan’s back and his hands can be clearly seen roaming to places beneath the skirt, and that’s when Kim coughs - loudly - and calls his name again.

“Aidan!”

There’s a moment when Kim thinks that she either has not been heard, or is being ignored. It lasts a few heartbeats and then the woman slowly slides down Aidan’s body, though her hands remain firmly gripped to his shirt. She peeks around the vampire, licking her lips slowly as they curl into a smugly satisfied smile. “Bonjour, Kim. I didn’t see you there.”

“Celia.” Kim pauses a beat, giving a smirk of her own. “I didn’t recognize you at first.” Though really she should have been able to recognize the female vampire even with her tongue shoved down Aidan’s throat. It isn’t as though that’s a sight Kim hasn’t seen before.

“It’s the hair,” Celia smiles, intentionally mis-understanding the words and coiling a tight springy curl around one finger absently. She steps around Aidan, her dark eyes taking in the loft flat. “I’m thinking about going back to wearing curls.”

“I like the curls,” Aidan declares. He snakes an arm around her waist and pulls the younger vampire back against him, planting his mouth against her throat.

Celia reaches back with an eerily human and girlish laugh and pats his head, rakes her nails through his dark, mussed hair. “You are too easily pleased, Ian.”

“Maybe,” Aidan allows with a purr. He nuzzles at Celia’s throat. “But I know what I like.”

Kim shifts her weight, fixing the two vampires beneath an unamused glare, not that it has any effect on their antics. On Aidan’s antics. There’s something both unsettling and curious about her master’s interactions with Celia. Kim saw it when she met Celia so many years back on their visit to Miami. While Aidan is often charmingly playful and Kim knows that she sees a side of him that others often don’t, he’s oddly enough even more human around the younger vampire. They play their human facades off of one another so well that sometimes Kim forgot that they aren’t.

“I would suggest that the pair of you go upstairs,” Kim says tightly as Aidan seems happily content kissing and nibbling on Celia’s throat and his hands are steadily tugging up the hem of her skirt, and the pretty Creole vampire hasn’t made a move to stop him. “I’m sure that would make you miss your flight though, Aidan.”

Her words have the sobering effect that she thought they would. Aidan ceases his attentions and lifting his head, murmurs in his native tongue. Kim doesn’t speak Gaelic and hasn’t a clue what he’s said, but Celia cants her head and gives him an elbow to the ribcage. “That’s absolutely foul, Aidan.” She steps away from the elder, smoothing down her skirt in a facade of modesty that Kim knows the woman does not possess. “What about a flight? Are you leaving London when I only just got here?”

“I didn’t know you were coming.” Aidan waves a finger at her. “You could have called ahead.”

“Then it wouldn’t have been a surprise, cherie.” Celia’s lower lip juts out in a perfectly adorable pout that could only have come from decades of practice. “Where are you going? Do you have to go? I came for your birthday.” Her stroll through the loft takes her to the blonde young man’s side and Celia runs her fingers up the young man’s muscled arm and across his broad chest, “I even brought you something.”

Something wholly unreadable flashes on Aidan’s face and flickers in his eyes as his attention turns fully to the young man. Kim swears that for a moment the room is charged - and she can’t say whether it’s positively or negatively so.

“You see the resemblance, don’t you?” Draping herself across the young man, Celia rests her head on his chest and rakes her fingers from his sternum to his navel. “You know that I can always find you what you wouldn’t ever get for yourself, fear céile mo chroí. This is Brendan. Brendan, do be a good boy and go say hello to Aidan.”

Brendan obediently steps away from Celia and strolls casually over to Aidan as the order - because it most certainly is an order, no matter how sweetly worded - is given. He’s not shy, Celia’s Brendan, as he reaches out to stroke Aidan’s jaw, speaking in a quiet baritone colored with heavy southern United States accent. “Hello, Aidan.”

Even fully expecting it, when Brendan leans in to kiss Aidan, Kim is surprised. Moreso by the hungry intensity of the kiss that Aidan returns, grasping the back of Brendan’s head and kissing him feverishly. Kim shifts her weight again, swallowing unconsciously.

“Delicious, isn’t it?”

Celia’s sudden appearance at her side and leering purr in her ear causes Kim to tense and jerk involuntarily. She immediately hates herself for the reaction, for giving the vampiress notice that she caught Kim quite unawares.

Celia merely smirks at her, in that cat-got-the-canary fashion that’s a near perfect echo of the same smile from Aidan. She’s far too close to Kim, a fact that’s driven home when a flawless cocoa hand reaches out and smooths down Kim’s hair as Celia plants a kiss on her cheek. “There are reasons that Aid chose you.”

When Celia draws back, Kim’s not sure she’s grateful that the woman hasn’t left her personal space completely - or that she wishes she would.

“It’s okay to watch,” Celia smiles at her, “Aidan doesn’t enjoy the pretty boys nearly enough, I think.” Beat, and suddenly the Yank is all business. “Now, what’s this about Aidan going away?”

Kim pulls her eyes away from the tableau of Aidan and Brendan, taking a breath and feigning a calm that she doesn’t actually feel. “He has a flight to catch. It’s business.”

“Business?” Celia tilts her head, and it’s that feeling of prey being watched by an idle predator. Which really, pretty much hits the mark. If Kim weren’t protected due to her status as Aidan’s human servant, that look would make her feel quite a bit wary. “But you manage his business. Whatever it is, it can be postponed, can’t it?”

Kim frowns. She doesn’t like the tone of Celia’s voice, but she knows that the woman is as mercurial as the vampire who created her. “It’s not that. It’s something else. Vampire business.

A scowl mars Celia’s pretty features. She turns to study the two men, and then sighs. Arms folded beneath her breasts, she strolls over to the pair, casually stroking her fingers through Aidan’s hair. “I hate to interrupt, but what’s Kim talking about?”

Aidan breaks away from Brendan, dismissing the younger man with quietly spoken words in his ear. Kim doesn’t hear them, but the way that the young man nods and walks toward the couch fills in the blanks rather nicely. Aidan’s blue eyes - bright with lust and hunger - flicker toward Kim and then back to Celia. “It’s something I have to do.”

“I thought you were staying out of court politics, Ian.”

“As much as I can. Trust me, it’s not at all where I want to be.” Then comes a short burst of words in yet another language that Kim doesn’t speak, but Celia clearly does. Kim frowns; she doesn’t like that Aidan still leaves her out of things. As he winds down, the elder vampire suddenly tugs the younger into his arms again, with a crooked smile. “Your timing is absolute shite, Cel. But we’ll catch up once I get back.”

“We better.” The woman leans up and whispers something into Aidan’s ear that earns a laugh as the man sweeps her up in his arms, crushing her mouth to his. When they finally break, Celia calls out, “Come Brendan.”

As the trio heads up the staircase, Kim sighs and begins mentally rearranging hers and Aidan’s schedules. Dealing with Aidan is difficult enough; she suspects that having two of them around is going to keep her on her toes.


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