Roast in hell/ I love you - The House that Sin Built

Teagan sat on his porch looking out at the sea.  Waiting, she unlike some had patience.  If need be she would go to ground for the day and wait for the rest of the next night.  She was forever it would seem waiting for him.  She brooded, how she felt certain things with him, and how she would never know if any of it past the sex and the violence was real.  Because like now she was always waiting for him to pull something like what he did the week before.  Something to push her away and make her question everything.

Eventually he drifted home. He moved with his usual grace but none of his usual magnatism as though the darkness in him he usually used was instead consuming him.


She really was there, he was almost surprised. But it was probably just the blood. She didn't want to be there it was just forcing her to be there.

he sighed and came to the foot of the porch and looked up at her.

She looked down to where he stood, and she held her hand out to him, an invitation for him to join her where she was seated.

He moved to her slowly. There were only maybe three steps but he took each in turn with a certain reluctance. He didnt know why she had appeared, what had brought her back. Didnt know what she was going to say. It had all become so real over the century. More real then he was honestly equipped to handle. He ran her off some times to replace feelings he wasnt sure he wanted with anger and a sense of abandonment. But that was a dangerous game. He was never quiet himself when she was gone and the longer he resisted the pull the more self destructive he became. But something deep with in him needed to be loved in spite of his terrible nature and cruel habits and that part made him paranoid and testing, always trying to see if she needed him as much as he needed her. He was beginning to think she didnt, thoughts like that always lead to him doing hugely fucked up things. Like getting himself addicted to a setite who he in turn kept entranced. It was a twisted and dangerous cycle, one that was bound to get him killed one night.

She had thought about leaving, she hated his mind games, and never understood why when it felt like they might be pulling together becoming the couple they played at that everything fell apart. Instead she had stayed away, occasionally watching him to see if he was as broken as she was about it all. First he had stopped eating, then he slowly fell away and there was nothing but a gasping pit of sadness where Luke had been. As he mounted the stairs her eyes watched him, each tortured step he took made her question more and more if his actions where to hurt him or her. Her gaze held him, and her hand remained outstretched for his the first step tonight, and she was making it.

He took her hand as he finished the short yet some how painfully long climb to her. His expression remained distant and guarded but he grasped her hand with the intensity of a drowning man. His body had always been more honest then he could ever hope to be.

"luke," she asked, " why must you always push me away?" her game was open and honest. she squeeze his hand, ever so gently.

"why do you want to be here?" He and answered with a question because in all honesty he wasnt ready to face down the answer to hers till he had the answer to his.

"I wasnt going to call you this time. Its been a hundred years, I dont want a hostage any more."

That was likely untrue. sooner or later he would have called her. But he meant that at the very least he was going to fight it this time. If she wanted to be gone he was done stopping her. or at least right now he was and as he always said now was the only thing that was real.

"Because you embrace my dark." Her fingers played over his as she thought about his question, "because when you weren't trying to play head games with me I thought I felt some sort of connection that had nothing to do with your blood, our your powers, or your snark, or your charms."

He was quiet a long time after she responded. He just held her hand and looked away into the night. Kind of, sort of, not a lot there, nothing certain.

"I just wanted to get a rise out of you. I didn't think you would leave." He said almost absantly as though more to himself then her.

"Too soon since Dallas." she offered. Her own tone took on an almost brooding quality.


"Are you doing it again? Pushing me away, and then taking solace from every other pair of arms but mine? In another's veins?" she asked she tried to keep the accusatory tone out of her voice, but it crept in regardless. The tone that said that this happened more often then she could count.

"I am no pet." she said softly, an edge of a growl to her voice. But really considering the topic, Teagan was remarkably controlled.

"Its just blood. Who much blood have you played in that wasn't mine? How many bruises I didn't give you have you worn? You can't even get off with out some one slaping you around a bit. I maybe push you away but maybe it's because I have no idea if you even want to be here. What makes me so special? You hate me. I'm sure you can find some one you don't wish was dead to play sadist with a knife."

"You never asked." she said as though it was the simplest thing in the world.


"Every time I left I needed to prove to myself that you still wanted me... I needed some proof that I wasn't just some passing amusement. I feel like if I hold you to tightly you freak out and push me away... isn't that what happened the other night? We were being intimate with one another." Her tone said she wasn't talking about sex, but something deeper, a sharing of themselves.

"were we? All I saw was blood and chains." He was pushing again. It was the blood, she didn't want him it was just the blood. "if I didn't come would I have ever seen you again. You want to know if I what you? Well when Have I ever had a sign you want me. I'm more your captor then your lover most nights it seems" now they neared the vein of it as his voice took on an edge of baldface spite.

"Before that Luke... upstairs... or was that just me?" she said softly her eyes watching him ever so closely.

"No upstairs wasnt special" He snapped looking angry and actually animated once again "Not for me, it didnt have to be. I am always connected to you. Your the one that fights its your the one that leaves. I dont need a magic moment. I dont sorta of or kind of about you. Thats just from your end." Because he loved her, in his mine she was the one fighting it.

"Then why push me away?" she asked him full circle back to her first question. Her eyes held his, waiting for him to come to terms with the fact that maybe just maybe he had a hand in how fucked up their relationship was. If he could understand that then they could more forward.

Love wasn't a word she could use, once spoken it could never be taken back. It would forever be a weapon or a tool used against her. Her only armor against him was her mock indifference. The indifference that melted away when ever he shared part of himself with her, like on the beach when they hunted together.

"Because I cant" He snarled "Because no one wants to be near what I am. because cause I dont know how anymore. " He said the last softly, a Toreador who forgot how to love wasnt a Toreador anymore. That was what separated them from their sabbat cousins and he wasnt sure it still separated him at all.

"Can we try?" she asked, as close as she had ever come to saying how she felt for him. That part of her that was buried deep with in, the part she liked to try and tell herself was just his blood whispering in her ear. Like a demon asking her to snuggle.

"How" He asked quietly. That one word the most loaded question he could ask. How could they move pass the games and spite and rage they had allowed to linger between them for so long. How could they set aside their resentment, even though in truth his resent came not from anything she had ever done but from his certainty that she did not and could not ever love him.

"One night at a time. You stop pushing me away, or trying to replace me..." her teeth snapped shut on the last part as she remembered the taste of the Setite beneath her fangs, the feel of her flesh as she shredded her to pieces.


With a shake of her head she continued speaking with barely a moments hesitation, "And I will stop leaving."

"I have never tried to replace you" He said softly. "you dont understand. I, I just wanted to be with some one for a while I was certain wanted to be with me. you spend a century certain the thing you love most wish you were dead and tell me you wouldnt find comfort where you could"

"It was my only protection." She said softly, her hand still on his.

"well it kept you good and safe."he said in a voice of soft venom. "Just like story time. always demanding I go first. well I never came for you blood. I never promised to kill you. you go first this time. you go first or it doesnt happen at all" His eyes echoed his demand. tell me how you feel, plain words and mean them.

This felt distinctively like a trap. Teagan held perfectly still as she thought about what hee had just said. Thinking to her self he already spoke of love, not that she would tell him that.

"Are you sure....all this time I have been so scared to ever stop making you chase me waiting for you to cast me aside like I have watched you do with so many others."

Her eyes hold fear lots of fear, "You own my heart Luke," she finally said.