the walls you've built

Pulling the espresso cup out from the machine, Grey set it down on the kitchen counter in front of him. He swiped his thumb over the spot of coffee that dotted the white rim and lifted it to his mouth. Blue eyes ticked up to the elevator for the third time that hour, checking to see if the light above it was ticking up past the room levels. Few had the code, fewer still were welcome in his personal space. Most of the clients downstairs were glad for the privacy he offered them, those who weren’t had no way past the security measures anyway and any who tried to circumvent them wouldn’t just find that they were unwelcome in any of his hotels again. Most of them fell into one category or another that would benefit him and since his sister had tried to tear his guts out he hadn’t been the sort to hesitate when there was one bright, shiny brass ring in front of him or another. He took what he wanted, what he needed, and didn’t regret it later.

She’d been the latter to start with. Tinkerbell.

Grey clucked his tongue then slicked it over the tip of his thumb. He hadn’t been looking for any sort of an apprentice, hell, this wasn’t the sort game where you had them, but after she’d healed the burns the wolflet had inflicted on him when she’d killed him with his own trap and he’d offered up hours of gratitude, it had been an easy matter to say yes to teaching her. Dropping his hand, he rubbed the damp pad of his thumb up and down the side of the warm cup, eyes still on the elevator door directly opposite.

Darachs weren’t all that different to druids in that the information, the knowledge, the power, tended to be passed down generation to generation. Like with any sort of parental bond, some did a stellar job, others fucked up royally and his own father had fallen into that latter category. The curse hanging over his head driving him to the bottle instead of forcing him to man up and do something about it finally. Destiny’s own lack of education hadn’t come from a dark cloud hanging over her family for generations. Rather it had been a loss, a family cast apart like dice thrown by some malevolent hand. She could’ve ended up apathetic, as jaded as he was himself but there’d been something so bright still in her that it almost hurt looking at it and that earnestness even when he’d seen her cringe away from him. Bearing the scars of a hard past but not broken by them.

He hadn’t used his power to hurt her, not in the way he had the wolflet, hands gentle and giving instead. Teaching, urging her to feed that fire inside of herself and not let herself be walked over like others had done to her before.

The subtle sound of the elevator alarm had his eyes snapping up to the ticking light above it. There she was, right on time to learn in his space now instead of hers. Maybe this time they’d get through more than the first few minutes before that gratitude spilled over again and all thoughts of drumming when he knew into her mind turned into searing half of what they knew out of their brains in those flashes of white light that obliterated everything for a time.

Grey eased back with his cup, settling his hips against the counter, legs crossed at the ankle as the door slipped open. A faint curve of his lips met the cup as he lifted it to take a sip. Blue eyes followed her as she stepped inside, watched her gaze drift over the place as her mouth hung open beneath. He raised his brows, taking another slow sip as her gaze snagged on him. ”Holy shit indeed,” he drawled. Tilting his head, he studied it as she had with narrowed eyes. ”I don’t call something mine if I don’t mean it is entirely,” he told her. ”Should I have been dripping in gold when I got fried? Or you know, been rollin’ around in a bunch of bills like Scrooge McDuck? Just to make sure I gave off the right impression.” That was part of it though. You encouraged people to underestimate you and you didn’t end up being the one surprised at the end of it when the truth came rolling out.

He drained the last of the espresso and straightened up, trailing around the counter to meet her. An arm found her waist for a moment as she hugged him, blue eyes taking in the elevator over her shoulder. ”Lift’s easier,” he drawled, patting a hand at the small of her back as he let out a faint mock growl at the attempt at his accent. ”There’s no point in aimin’ for a high class clientele if you’re not gonna put the effort in. My first weren’t anythin’ like this.” It had been better by the time he’d sold the cheaper little motel though, trading up for something better, something elsewhere. Grey slipped his hands into the straps of her backpack, fingers hooking as he circled her to pull it down her arms and off. He dropped it on the sofa, reaching around her to unzip the thick winter jacket she wasn’t gonna need in here. ”Hope you came prepared to work your arse off today. I’ve got plans.” He slipped her jacket off the same way he had the bag, dropping that on the couch too before he set his hands on her shoulders and steered her in the direction of the door just to left of the kitchen area. A coded lock on it, the same way there was on the elevator, this space not even touched by his cleaning staff. Grey thumbed the code in, the lock snicking and letting the door fall open slightly to reveal the work space beyond.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 1003

Grey’s eyes narrowed faintly with amusement as he stepped in, an arm going around her as she met him halfway across the living room with that one-armed hug. His space in each of his hotels had always been sacrosanct, it didn’t matter how plush or opulent the rest of the space was, how many staff he had working for him or the class of his clientele. That space was his alone, as opulent as he wanted it. In comparison to the old house he’d grown up in every single one of them had been a step up, a slow climb out of the destitution his family’s decline had left them in.

He turned that smile on her as he drew back, those little lines fanning at the corner of big blue eyes as he looked down at her. Part of him enjoyed that surprise on her face, liked to see those pixie like features light up with surprise the way they had that first time they’d met and dozens of times since. ”Where would the fun have been in that?” he asked lightly. He liked the unabashed honesty that rolled out of her, found something appealing in it where others would’ve hidden it all under a poker face. Where he hid it all under one.

Making a low sound in his throat, he drew back a couple of inches, just enough that he saw the sigh rather than felt it against his own chest as hers rose and fell, saw those big, unshielded eyes rolling as she grinned. Grey’s lips pursed faintly, shoulders rising and falling. ”I’m sure that could be arranged too. Might be a little more uncomfortable though.” Like he would’ve had a clue either way. His childhood hadn’t been about comic books or cartoons. He probably could’ve recited the labels off of the bottles of booze that littered that house before he could’ve read a comic. His childhood 80 percent proof before his half sister had lit the spark and blown the entire thing up.

Maybe the scorched ground was what had allowed him to rebuild on such a solid foundation, or maybe it was just a sign that out of all of them, he’d be the one to break this damn curse. When he did the world would truly be his oyster, the pack the final prey. Not for a sacrifice but to scorch the last of that ground and rid himself of all that had held him back, all that would come for him. Grey’s lips remained pursed, the centre of an expression that was all amusement and uncharacteristic warmth. He glanced towards the lift, shoulders rising and falling without an ounce of shame. ”The Darach version of Batman, just call me Bruce Wayne.” Clearing his hotels of the guilty, using what they had started to corrupt to benefit himself. Sweeping the femme fatales off their feet, tripping up over the unexpectedly sweet and guileless.

Destiny had done just that to him, appearing out of nowhere to patch him up, revealing a story that had enough echoes of his own to had him reaching out to someone, playing Henry Higgins rather than Bruce Wayne, although he doubted Henry Higgins had been seduced by Eliza Dolittle before the end of every single training session. Grey had drawn away to take her coat, her bag, to get them both comfortable, a low crooning sound slipping from his throat as he started to circle her. ”A half dozen maybe. Sold the early ones to work my way up, still own a couple of the later ones.” A property magnate. The thought had him snorting. A far cry from the village and what would’ve been fifty or sixty years snivelling as the pack druid. ”I was looking for someone,” Grey admitted huskily. ”Thought they might’ve been here. Still think they might be. Trust me, it’s not as cheap as you would think.” Especially not when there was the Council to contend with and a million different building regulations.

Luckily for him he’d putting on that poker face long enough that he could lie with the best of them. Few saw beneath it, she had though. Grey circled Destiny, fingers working her backpack off and dropping it aside before he reached her front again to ease her zipper down. A chuckle rumbled out of him as she snickered at his comment. ”We work pretty hard at somethin’, it ain’t always work, work though. Someone always manages to distract me.” He narrowed his eyes to blue slits as he tossed her jacket aside, trying to act like he hadn’t been just as guilty over letting things slide. It was always too easy to let it go with her, those guiding hands taking a different path.

Now they settled on her shoulders, nudging her towards his work room at the back of the apartment. Closed away beyond a lockpad for extra security. He caught her looking away as he thumbed the code in, knew she would likely end up with that too if they continued to work together this way. Grey nudged the door open, bumped Destiny in with a nudge of his lips. The space was starkly lit, almost like a scientific lab. Shelving units lining the walls, filled with equipment and books, two large tables sharing the central space. A far cry from the garage like workshop he’d always worked in with his dad. Grey drew in a breath, nudged her towards one of the table as she looked up at him with wonder in her eyes. ”Told you I was the Darach version of Batman.” He snorted, his brows rising. ”That wasn’t cool ‘nough?” Obviously not, she was going with the full Bruce Wayne look. Grey’s laugh rumbled out as he crowded her towards one of the tables, hands finding her hips. ”Maybe I’ll have to let my architect know. She’s been itching to get her hands on the place again.” As his palms itched at her proximity now.

Grey dipped his chin, settling his hands on her hips as he nudged her back into the table. His lips curved into a cat’s got the cream grin, his hips pinning her there for a moment. Each training session had gone the same way so far, usually resulting in them spending a couple of hours sprawled over some horizontal surface in Destiny’s apartment. Today was different, today he was going to push her abilities, work both of them until they were exhausted for other reasons first. ”My plans start with you stayin’ put,” he told her, trying for stern. He slid his hands down further then, curving over her rump as he took half a step back. Grey lifted, boosting her up onto the edge of the table before he nudged her back.

Stepping back, he mock narrowed his eyes again, a finger held out in the air. ”You ever had any reason to be scared of me before?” he asked. There’d just been that once, when she’d frozen up, forcing her to open up to him about her past, the truth that had him wanting to track her ex down and wrap a garrot around his throat, even if that sort of sacrifice wouldn’t have gotten him anything. Grey glanced side, eyes fixing on a box on one of the shelving units. At a look it snicked open, a sinuous grey furry creature bolting over its edge in an instant. It leapt from the shelves to the table Destiny was on, scrambling onto her lap to look up at her, seemingly rapt with bright little black eyes fixed on her face.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 1272 (Ooop!)

His business wasn’t anybody else’s. Drunk, at least halfway down that slope to madness before his son had even gotten out of primary school Malcolm had hissed it in his boy’s ear. At the time it had felt like he just meant to hide all he knew – the family’s real work, the people who turned into wolves at the full moon – none of that was meant to be talked about loud in the village. Now Grey knew it ran far deeper, his family’s business a curse that had raged for centuries, his father’s in particular getting the wife of the pack’s alpha knocked up. Everything that should’ve been out in the open earlier but had been hidden. Grey thought he knew it all now, had ferreted the truth out of what his sister had growled at him that night, the diaries his father and the Maddox men before him had left behind, the members of the pack who’d been sent after him one by one.

Breadcrumbs. Leading here. To Mystic Falls. Hopefully to the druid family behind his own’s downfall.

To Destiny.

Trusting, sweet, naïve. Not what he should’ve gone near, especially when she was so untrained but that raw talent had helped bring him back and he’d wanted to mould it, to give her enough knowledge to stop something swallowing her up here. Grey studied her as he circled her, stripping down the outer layer of what she’d worn here, preparing her for their session. He hadn’t intended to do anything but recover at her place the first time but she’d stripped him down too, worked her way in til she knew more than anybody else here. Blue eyes flicked back up to hers, his smile slipping away to something serious for a moment. ”A druid, a family from my past, my family’s past.” Cowards, backstabbers, the thorn in the side of generations of his family. Each driven to madness in a vicious cycle he’d stop, just as he had his own sister.

He was strong enough to, or would be when the last of the sacrifices were committed. Every ounce of ability he could get inside of him, every ounce of that power coming to bear on those who had taken so much. The corner of Grey’s mouth ticked up, a trace of that pride coming back. ”You start out small, it’s easy enough. Means roots of some sort though. You ready to put them down, Destiny?” Her place was rented, he’d found out that much in the time they’d been training, when he’d poked around in the town records for her building, records he just happened to find amongst the dozens of others he was looking at. A woman without roots, just like him in a way.

Both rootless and yet somehow entangled. Grey ran his knuckles up over her back as she turned to look at him over her shoulder. His brows rose, a snort of disbelief rolling out before he mouthed a ‘yeah’ at her. ”You wouldn’t, Miss Butter Wouldn’t Melt.” Clucking his tongue, Grey had nudged her forward. Like somehow he hadn’t been a willing participant in that tumble. With just a little will he could’ve kept her at a distance, kept fighting until he got their training back on track. A strict task master who wouldn’t let Destiny or him slip for a minute but like he’d said earlier, where was the fun in that.

He factored it into the training though, added in the hours for distraction. Getting Destiny to come to his place hadn’t been in the hope to put a stop to that, cause eventually one of them was gonna trip and fall tonight. Preferable after he’d pushed her hard, drawn something more out of her and left her trembling with a different sort of strain and exhaustion.

It was that Tinkerbell like wonder that had filled the air with proverbial Pixie Dust so far, a wonder in her big, expressive eyes, an unhidden wonder. Grey saw it there as he’d gotten her into the work room. His body invading her space, coaxing Destiny back into one of the tables as she curled her fingers around his forearms. This usually would’ve been a preamble to one of the less productive parts of their training. His head dipping, drawing her lip from between her teeth, nerves tingling as her nails bit harder into his skin. Not today. His laughter trailed off, low, husky, more a vibration of anything as he slid his hands to her hips, the curve of her ass, and lifted her onto the table. ”The time you got to play Florence Nightingale for me,” he drawled, his hands, the lean press of his hips still holding there for a minute. ”If I remember rightly you recovered quick enough. Don’t know if I thanked you enough for it yet.” Blue eyes narrowed, studying her face from those big blue eyes to those lips parted from her giggle. Not yet, not close to it, even if he would’ve eventually healed on his own.

Instead of letting her draw him in again and stop the session before it stared Grey worked his way backwards. Eyes breaking from hers, flicking over to the box in the corner of the room. Holes drilled in the sides, he wasn’t that much of a monster, the latch closed until he flipped it open with a thought. The squirrel was out in an instant, a streak of grey fur leaping from the shelves to the table, scurrying into Destiny’s lap to look up at her rapt. Grey propped his hips against another shelving unit, arms crossed over his chest, legs angled out, crossed at the ankle as Destiny beamed down towards the squirrel, then up at him. ”He’s not a pet,” he told her with a shake of his head. ”Up until this morning he was in one of the trees outside.”

The chuckle rolled low again, dark brows rising as he dipped his chin to watch her. ”I don’t think I can pull off Willy Wonka, although you might just pull off Charlie instead of Veruca. You’re not the sort to want it all right now.” In fact Destiny was the opposite. Pigeon steps with the training, that sense of wonder lighting her up like a Christmas tree every time she learned something new. ”You ever had a connection with an animal?” he asked. The skin around Grey’s eyes crinkled faintly as he look at the squirrel again. Without any sign that something outward was acting on it the squirrel hopped up into Destiny’s hand, curling up adorably with its tail swishing against her fingers, those eyes fixed on hers but with more intelligence behind them now.

Tagged: DESTINY BACCARI * Word Count: 1122

It wasn’t meant to be a long stop. Chances were that the breadcrumbs he’d followed to Mystic Falls wouldn’t lead him to anything more than the last half dozen moves had. A fruitless search of the tiny town that surely couldn’t hide much for long, a quick build for the hotel, and then he’d linger only long enough to find another of those breadcrumbs and he would be somewhere else. It was the way of things, had been ever since he’d realised just how damned his family was. Quick moves, the only ones he had allowed himself. Grey Maddox wasn’t a man to linger now, his head having been buried in the sand by others for long enough. He hadn’t anticipated there being other anchors, their barbs working deep under his skin. Business, pleasure, revenge, all tangled up in those lines until Grey wasn’t sure he could pick them apart.

He supposed the hotel would’ve mean he had roots here all the same. Most he had sold as he’d left the town or city, building the coffers for the next move. Some he’d held on to, the Grey Haven likely to be one of those, especially if those other reasons to linger here remained. Grey kept her eyes on hers, his own crinkled at the corners with those fine lines as she nodded up at him, Destiny’s voice a hum in her throat. ”They must be running pretty deep by now then,” he murmured. ”You could let them sink deeper, buy a place here.” It was a step some were never ready for, that need to be able to snip the ties and run at any moment too deep. That should’ve been him, had been before, but even with his fingers on those scissors at all times Grey wasn’t sure he could clip this off and run with those threads hanging loose behind him.

The tangle of one of them slid around him invisible but undeniably there as he’d nudged her into his work space, that secret at the heart of the private space few ever got to see. It tightened as Destiny arched into him, her nails forging those dimples into his arms as he drew her lip from the grip of her teeth, skimming his own over it gently before he laughed into her. That first night had been unexpected, his solo resurrection from the wolflet’s one in a million vanquishing of him. Grey hummed, feeling the tender skin of her jaw rasp agains his stubble as he shook his head. ”Gonna have to do somethin’ about that then.” A promise linger in the air as he drew back. This evening’s trick probably wouldn’t do it but it was time for it. They’d spent enough of these sessions letting all the serious melt away into the physical.

Out of her reach he’d focused on the box in the corner of the room where the squirrel had been cooling his furry little heels all day with a store of nuts, kept calm by his voice in its head. It’d have its freedom later, the streak in him some would have called cruel not extending to the animal. Grey’s lips curled as he watched how rapt both the squirrel and Destiny seemed to be with one another, his own power what was pushing the squirrel to focus it’s shiny little eyes on her. She’d laughed at what he said, those cogs that seemed to be working behind those big blue eyes not really fixing on what he said immediately. A smirk aimed in his direction, a finger trailed over the squirrel’s head as he’d asked whether she’d ever had a connection with an animal, the compliment slipping out as he felt a ghost of her touch over his own scalp, down his back, the scritch at the base of the spine leaving a tingle running down his legs and his back arching away from the wall. ”Pretty or totally?” he asked, his lips curling into something more smug than smile as her eyes opened wide. Now he had her gasping over this rather than anything more. ”It’s one of the benefits of what we are. Yeah. You can drive them to do anything with enough power pumped into it.” Some hold over from when the world was wilder he supposed, druids and their darker counterparts tapped deep into nature.

Grey tilted his head, spreading his arms slightly to have the squirrel doing the same, the animal’s stubby arms moving in the air like he was conducting an orchestra. Just one small animal, the control needed minimal enough that he could’ve done this blind. ”Careful,” Grey crooned, just a hint of warning in it as he straightened up, pulling away from the wall. ”You can have yourself a whole tea party of ‘em but don’t show it off too much, especially not here, you never know who’s watching.” If any place had eyes, it was Mystic Falls. Things flooded here, blood and chaos on their mind but it seemed like there was always someone prepared to stop them following in their wake. ”You could do this with Berlioz, look into his head if you wanted. It works both ways, probably already has without you noticing. He ever pick up on anything with you? Moods, emotions, needs?” He’d heard that pets usually did but that bond had never been one allowed in the Maddox household. There’d been enough fur in their life with the pack.

He slanted her a grin, something approaching that amusement echoing itself on the squirrel’s face. Grey trailed another step closer, tilting his head to send the squirrel scurrying into Destiny’s palm. He gestured again, encouraging her to lift it to eye height. ”You need to imagine the world through its eyes. Look into them, picture what it’s seeing. It’s like following a thread between you and it, travel along that line. This time will be easier, I’m already there in him. Look for me there, look for me, for it, looking at you … see what we see.” Her, that wonder in her face, those guileless blue eyes that had been the first thing he’d fixed on when the resurrection bag had mule kicked him back to life.

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What was it like having that wonder? Even once darkness had hit your life and stuck like a rain cloud over it, ready to drench you at any point. Grey wasn’t sure he’d ever known. He’d never had it. There was no Disney upbringing for him, no Mickey Mouse ears on trips to Disneyland, no real imagination about talking animals or magic carpet rides. The dusty old box of a TV in the corner of the living room that was snapped off the minute the booze had started to strip his dad’s nerves bare brought in those flickering static images, whatever could be picked up on the 5 channels they had. Anything outside of that world was brief snatches, on rainy days at school when they’d huddle them together in the hall. 50 kids stretched out on the mats, watching movies that had been old when the ancient headmaster had been a kid.

Once Malcolm had started down that slippery slope towards insanity even that had been gone. Raving lessons that had left the wide eyed kid staring at his father in confusion and fear. It hadn’t been until he was older that Grey had realised how much truth was among the rambling words of a mad man. In a motel room in New York, with his father dead and an entire pack on his tail for the murder of the brat who’d helped drive his dad down into that dark pit, he’d doggedly put those lessons together. Pacing the cheap shag carpet as he worked skill after skill out of what he remembered. The first animal he’d coaxed down from above the roof tiles, a ratty looking pigeon with a death wish, had left him with that thrill shooting through him but it hadn’t been this. This was all Tinkerbell.

That wonder she tried to hide with the sheepish smile, the excitement that had wrung a smile out of him. Grey didn’t call her on it as he straightened up, coaxing the squirrel into spreading its tiny arms, taking a slow bow. The sound that it wrung out of her almost had him calling the early end to the lesson. Dismissing the squirrel to drag that childlike wonder into himself.

Grey swallowed, keeping up that connection to the squirrel even if it strained. For some it might’ve been, for others there was always that gulf, what they were and what nature would allow leaving them on opposite sides of some imaginary line. Disconnected, despised. ”Maybe, to a certain extent but it’s different for us.” There was an animal whining when it sensed stress in a room and there was that sudden snap of awareness, that shiver in your bones that let you know it was more, that you both knew. Grey shook his head, shrugged. ”If you can do this, you’ll see. It’ll let you get into Berlioz’s head. Do you want to see what he sees Destiny?” See. Feel. Know. It wasn’t just about the control. It could be so much more, like everything in what they were.

The Druids they had sprung from had only scratched the surface of that. It had been enough, frustratingly, terribly, to let one line of them ruin his own. Still calling themselves the wise oaks as they had damned others. Death, madness, destruction, all at their hands and in a way Grey was sure Destiny’s own experiences had echoed it. The ex. The one who had left her flinching away from him.

Grey pushed the thought down in his mind. Locking it away where they wouldn’t have to examine it, not now. He wanted Destiny to know, to have those tools to take care of herself the next time. Coaxing gently, he’d gotten the squirrel into her palm, had encouraged him to lift it with those words of instruction slipping quietly out of his mouth. His gaze fixed on her, watching Destiny bring the squirrel right up to her face. Focus. Sharp enough that he was sure he could feel her get a grip on that line between the three of them an instant before there was that quiet snick and the two of them were sharing the mind of the squirrel for a moment. ”There you are.” A fondness to those words, just a smudge of what he saw when he looked at her overlaying what she saw until he slipped her away, leaving Destiny there alone.

That wonder was back, the whispered words rolling off her lips drawing a grin out of him. A pride. Each lesson might’ve ended sooner than planned, that exuberance spilling over into something else but she was learning. Grey watched as the squirrel turned to him, that same focus he’d fixed on her now on him. His eyes narrowed faintly, still on Destiny. Holy shit indeed.” Slowly,” he warned, knowing how quick that thread could snap if you weren’t careful. She was though, he hand held out, the squirrel twitching like he was ready to flee. In a surprising instant it was off of Destiny’s hand and on his shirt, the light weight of it thudding against his chest and then scrambling up, nuzzling in against his neck.

A low sound rumbled out of Grey’s throat. One hand came up, scritching at the squirrel’s fur. One blunt nail working lightly at the animal’s neck. ”Oh he’s definitely all you now.” The familiar feel of Destiny wrapped around him slipping through him like it was on a breeze. She’d meant that, the colour rising in her cheeks proof of it. Grey moved back towards her then, fingers still working over the squirrel’s fur. “T-rex,” he lied glibly. It had been a wolf, in the woods outside of Georgia, a wolf against a wolf. Fitting. “The sky’s the limit. Protection, offence, information. You ever think twice about a bird on your windowsill or some random cat rubbin’ around your ankles?” His voice grew rougher as he stopped in front of her. Grey’s hands found her legs again, fingers curling behind her knees to give her a light tug towards him. “Let him go now,” he murmured. Lifting his head, Grey stared at the doors at the end of the room, shuttered against prying eyes and the elements outside. With a quiet snick they opened, a cool evening breeze slipping in to do nothing against the heat that had started to rise under his skin.

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