bitten_notshy | Pink Corner House, Bristol, Late Saturday Night

Carl	Mitchell had long since gone to bed, but Carl had had trouble sleeping. For reasons that were-- ... Yeah. Eventually, he had given up, and simply taken the Shepherd's Pie out of the fridge, dumping something onto his plate. At least if he was up and eating, he had something to do with himself, anything that wasn't just... thinking.
Jack	Sebastien had, rather aggressively, retired behind a book, and Jack couldn't quite get to sleep. A glass of something might help, he decided. Though he froze when he made it to the kitchen and spotted Carl. "Oh," he said. "You're awake." As greetings went, it ... wasn't as impolite as it could have been.
Carl	Carl glanced up, his thoughts briefly shattered. Quite frankly, though, he welcomed it. "Yeah," he sad, smiling apologetically. "Everyone else's still upstairs sleeping, I just thought I'd get something to eat. I... can stay out of your way."
Jack	"You were as invited as I was." Jack had chosen the wording deliberately, and his irritation at the situation showed in his abrupt movement as he prodded some milk aside and took out a cart on of juice. "Don't put yourself out." He hadn't wanted to be right about Carl.
Carl	"All right," said Carl, cautiously. He poked around at his food with his fork. "So you're with... Mitchell's friend?" he tried, after a brief silence.
Jack	"Mitchell was my teacher," Jack answered, barely glancing to Carl. He was all precise coolness as he went about his business: Find a glass not full of tea or tea remnants, open the juice, pour some out. "Sebastien is my guardian. He's a detective. Mitchell wanted help finding you." From the look Jack gave Carl, it was easy to surmise that he wasn't sure it had been worth the effort. "George is ... we used to go to school together, actually."
Carl	"Ah." Carl was ... starting to feel distinctly unwelcome, but he was trying not to let that get to him, exactly. "He seems nice," he volunteered at last. "Though I'm not sure his girlfriend is doing-- well, that's not my place to say." He swallowed a quick bite of shepherd's pie. "Then you're... a student?" God help him, he was trying.
Jack	"In London," Jack confirmed, without much interest in supplying a fuller autobiography, then glanced toward the stairs as if he expected the subject of his next sentence to come down them any moment. "Nina's ... I'm not sure I know what's going on with her, or with them. She has a reason to be upset." Though at least George hadn't killed her, but Jack managed not to say that.
Carl	"George gets where he's gone wrong, though," Carl said, quietly. "I think... I think she needs to realise that. He knows what he's done." This was so impossibly awkward. He tried flashing Jack a wobbly smile to elect something other than this cold.
Jack	"He can know it all he wants and it's not going to cure her, is it?" The cold seemed to be staying. "I was there when it happened," he added, a bit abruptly. "It was an accident. But George can't take it back." Ah, parallels.
Carl	"No," Carl said. He twisted his fork into the remains of the food on his plate, appropriately chastised. "No, he... can't, I suppose. It just-- seemed important. Nevermind."
Jack	"No, it is important," Jack corrected, looking directly at Carl for the first time. "It's important because it's the same as the reason why Sebastien has to hide his nature so much. Because he can be the most gentle creature in the world, but if there's that one tiny, tiny moment where he gets things wrong --" Jack's fingers fluttered. He wanted to touch his scars but wouldn't. "I trust him. I trust Mitchell. I want to trust George and Nina and even you. But sometimes it gets hard."
Carl	Carl's fork hit the plate with a clatter. He buried the tips of his fingers briefly in his hairline, sliding his palms over his forehead. "He trusted me," he said. "I trusted myself. I thought after twenty years, I'd--" He dropped his hands back to the table. Funny, how he couldn't look Jack in the eye now that the boy was finally acknowledging him. "I'd become better than that," he said. "And then when it-- when it happened-- God, he'd thought so, too." He was rambling.
Jack	"How did it happen?" Jack probably shouldn't have asked the morbid question, but he had to; his skin would itch if he didn't. "Was it in bed, or just ... something he did for you?" He assumed Carl could pick up on the personal reason for his questions, but he wasn't about to point that out.
Carl	"We were in bed. Sleeping. I'd been dreaming," he said, shutting his eyes. "...about blood, and then--" He fell silent again.
Jack	And that was where some basic human sympathy kicked in. (Some of this was relief: Well, Sebastien doesn't sleep.... Jack wouldn't let himself examine it, because he knew perfectly well how stupid that thought was.) "I'm sorry," he finally said. "I've been" -- dammit, this was easier to say at home, where people had proper words for things, and Jack wasn't in the mood to explain the court system -- "with Sebastien for years. Every time I hear a story like that, it hits at me. Perhaps more than it should."
Carl	Carl had gone and started rubbing at the skin right between his eyebrows, and then he finally looked up and met Jack's eyes again. He was trying for an earnest smile, and got about halfway in. "I understand," he said, quietly. "I do. It's-- I'm sorry." He was sure he wasn't really doing much for Mitchell's peace of mind, either.
Jack	"That won't change anything," Jack said, repeating his line from before as he held Carl's eyes. "There's nothing to be done for any of it, but I appreciate that you understand why I'm not at my friendliest."
Carl	"He seems... different," Carl tried. "Than us. Mitchell and I, I mean. Maybe..."
Jack	"I can hope." Which was, really, all Jack had, and he knew perfectly well Sebastien was listening by now. He'd explain a bit more, though. "We're from a universe over. It's a different system: He's something like 1,200 years old, so he's had time to -- to work things out. But he'd be the first to tell you that doesn't tame him."
Carl	Over a millenium... Carl sat up a little straighter. "...twelve-hundred years?" he asked. "How is it--" He shut his mouth. Then, "Maybe their lives are less violent than ours."
Jack	"It's not especially uncommon," Jack said, slumping a bit. "His sire was executed only a few years ago, and she had decades on him." He was willing to concede, with a thoughtful sip of juice, "It does seem like there's less excitement around them than around you lot. They all have a few people like me to help with things. Maybe that's the difference."
Carl	"Maybe," Carl said, but he didn't sound too convinced. "Maybe they had friends that got them through the purges of yore. I don't know. The oldest I've ever met before him was... three hundred? Three hundred and fifty?"
Jack	"You'd have to ask him," Jack answered. "He's not the most reliable about his own biography. He tends to come up with things only when they're relevant, and he starved during the black plague so a lot of years are just gone." More somberly, he added, "I think it's all a lot to keep in one brain. Curse of eternal life."
Carl	Carl glanced back down at the remains of his food. "At least we have that going for us," he murmured. "It could end soon."
Jack	"Always on the brink," Jack said, almost lightly. He still wasn't altogether comfortable with Carl, but he felt better now that he'd explained why he was bothered. "And yet, somehow, the race endures." Which had him wondering how vampires were essential to the ecosystem, but that was a topic to research another time.
Carl	"So we do." At least the tension was gone. A little. Carl sighed. "Are you hungry? I think Mitchell's friend made this."
Jack	"If George made it, I think I can eat," Jack said, going to the fridge to fill a plate for himself. "Thank you for offering." Peace, for the moment, was restored.