multiversallogs | Those very rare occasions don't let up, they keep on coming

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Those very rare occasions don't let up, they keep on coming

Who: Apollo and Cassandra
What: The inevitable awkward conversation following a drunken encounter
Where: The Valhalla Inn
When: The night after this
Notes: None
Warnings: Sexual tension and snippy, blunt honesty

The Valhalla Inn was starting to get claustrophobic. Cassandra felt trapped. It was ridiculous, of course. She wasn't a prisoner as she had been on the caravan, as she had been in Willaknapp. Nor was she, as far as she knew, under the sway of the natives of Baedal, as she had been in Rowan. Still, she was anxious to get out. The thought of having a place of her own was appealing, but Cassandra knew herself well enough to know that if she couldn't find someone to share a flat with, she would likely go off the deep end again. When she was alone all the time, she withdrew. She lived up to certain expectations. No, it was definitely better for her to find an anchor, someone she could trust to keep her sane.

For now, however, the only way to relieve the claustrophobia was to keep the door to her room propped open.

Cassandra lay on her stomach, across the foot of her bed, lazily scanning her CiD, examining various network posts. She was finally beginning to get a sense of some of these people, but so far, Ianto--and by default, Jack--were the only ones she felt comfortable telling about her visions. With the monster attacks so fresh in her mind, she felt no end to the frustration about the fact that her dire warnings had not yielded any kind of results. Then again, what could she do? Certainly, she couldn't tell the militia or these Hellsing people. Neither party had demonstrated much to give her any kind of faith. Of course, it would be easier to just try to live a normal life and pretend the visions didn't happen.

But that would be a lie.

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Apollo was never sure what to make of Cassandra.

When he had entered in the room, she had run away, darting around the small room like a cornered animal. Now she was touching him and allowing him to spend the night in her bed.

He would never understand her, he was quite certain. Still, he wouldn't ask too many questions, not right now.

"Thank you."

"Yes."

It took a surprising amount of effort to get that single word out. But once she said it, Cassandra felt an odd, calming sensation. The sort that generally came with making a decision. A relief, almost.

"Although I imagine it complicates the definition."

"The definition of what?" he asked with a sudden laugh. "You were refusing to define anything. Said we had time to figure it out, remember?"

He brushed his fingertip against her cheek, pushing some hair out of her face. "You," he said fondly, "Are the most irritating creature I have ever encountered."

Cassandra raised an eyebrow. "I learned that from the best," she replied. She tried to look scowly and angry, but her eyes were shining just a bit brighter than usual.

"And if I'm so irritating," she continued after a moment, "then I would very much like to know why it is that you're still here."

"It's been awhile since you scratched up my back," he responded in the most solemn of tones. "I think it's time you tore it up again."

Suddenly, he swung her around and pressed her back against the bed, planting his hands around her. "If you're feeling up to the challenge. I'm also willing to discuss architecture, song, poetry?"

Cassandra gasped at the abrupt movement. She could feel her instincts fighting against each other; one part of her was ready to fight and to flee and to...yes...claw. The other part was anticipating something else that was far more human.

That part won.

Lightly, she trailed her fingertips down his back. "I know little about architecture. Only enough to know that Mycenaean temples are ugly. As for song...I fear the only songs I know are about the gods. The same for poetry, I suppose."

"Well, then..."

He brushed his lips across Cassandra's forehead, smiling to himself. For all of her bite and passion and fury, she was, in the end, still a woman. A young woman, even. And women, just like men, had their weaknesses.

He was pleased to see he was still one of hers.

"...what would you prefer to do?"

"You could sing something."

She said it as a tease, but after the words had left her lips, it occurred to Cassandra that she had never actually heard Apollo sing. She had heard him sung about, to be certain. And he was quite good at singing his own praises, but that was hardly the same thing. She could once remember him playing the lyre too. That had been an unparalleled experience, but asking him to fetch the lyre seemed rather stupid right now, especially as she considered the feeling of his weight, which was more pleasant than she wanted to admit.

"Or recite poetry. Or lecture me on architecture, perhaps. I know how much you enjoy teaching we mere mortals."

"Handsome Cassandra," he began in a dramatic voice, "My blushing rose. She of wild eyes and sharp teeth. Will she not bite me once more?"

He kissed along her neck, ending up at her jaw. "Truthfully, I can think of a great many things I would like to teach you, if you'd permit me to do so. I don't believe even one of them has anything to do with poetry or architecture, I'm pleased to say."

Cassandra closed her eyes, leaning her head to one side. This was better than the ecstasy, she decided. It was human, gentle, and in no way supernatural. Which was the way these things were supposed to go. Anything else felt wrong.

"Handsome?" she repeated in a murmur. "Handsome is what you would call an old woman, in her forties, after eight children."

It was a little surprising, to hear him joking about biting. He had been so...angry. Yes, that was the proper word. He had been furious after that incident. Not for the bite so much as the fact that she hadn't...what? What had she done wrong? She couldn't really say for certain. All she knew was that she had felt something for him, when he was angry. He had come alive for her, seemed human. Which is why everything that had happened had happened, she supposed.

"I wouldn't bite you again," she said quietly.

"I know," he responded, also quiet. He rubbed his nose against her jaw in an affectionate gesture. "I wasn't talking about that kind of biting, anyway. Just being playful."

He pulled back to look at her. In his normal tone, he added, "In that case, I take back the handsome. You are beautiful and vibrant."

Cassandra laughed. It wasn't her typical, cruel laugh at his (or anyone else's) expense, but her more genuine, rusty laugh. "Vibrant? Now there's a word." Probably one that people would more often apply to Apollo. He had a way of shining like the sun, after all. And, Cassandra thought wryly, when his more genuine attributes came out, she thought there was no one more beautiful. She only wished she could bring out that part of him more often. Preferably in a way that didn't involve any near death experiences or bitter shouting matches.

"Well," she said gently, "there's always the hissing. And the spitting, if the mood strikes."

She reached out, lightly touching his hair. "Or maybe something better."

He looked at her, eyebrows raising. "Something better?" he asked, tone much too innocent. Of course, he had some idea what she was hinting at, but she very rarely initiated this sort of thing.

He was curious how she would.

She smiled absently at him. "I have a confession to make to you, Apollo," she murmured. "Although I doubt it'll come as an enormous surprise. You're generally pretty good at reading me." Cassandra lowered her hand. "That confession is that I don't like being...that person. The angry, made person. It's not who I wanted to be. I don't enjoy it."

There were moments, she supposed, when it came it handy. The act kept her safe, body and soul, some of the time. It gave her freedom, back home, to go where she pleased and do what she pleased, frightening away anyone who would stop her. The problem was that it also frightened away anyone who might go on some amazing adventure with her.

It left her alone.

"I don't get to be myself often. The person that I feel like I am. But you give me opportunities. Rare occasions." She could only shrug. "It's better."

"I'm glad," he answered honestly. He took her hand, interlacing their fingers again and pressing his lips against her wrist.

"I haven't always made the best decisions when you were involved." No, that was putting things lightly--cowardly. He could do better. "I hurt you, I know I did. I ruined things for you." Apollo pressed his cheek against her hand, sighing softly.

"I regret that. There's little I regret, in my long history of terrible decisions, but I regret that. That I turned you into that person you didn't want to be."

Cassandra was a bit thrown by this confession. No, not thrown. Blown away. In recent days, she had begun to suppose that perhaps Apollo had some sense of remorse, but hearing it out loud? That was something she had decidedly not expected. It was actually quite touching. Some part of her mind was snickering though, whispering that the words weren't sincere, that he was just trying to get something out of it. She did her best to suppress that feeling.

"It would be wrong," she said cautiously, "for you to take all the credit for that. I made my own terrible decisions. So many that I regret."

For a moment, she was quiet, reflecting on several of those decisions. But suddenly, without her control, a tiny laugh escaped. She tried to stifle it, but another followed. "I never thought I would be having this conversation with you," she explained gently, making it very clear that she wasn't laughing at him really. "Especially not in this position."

"This position?" he inquired. "You mean, in a bed?"

He glanced around the room and then back at Cassandra. "It could be worse," he supposed, and his glance over her then was nothing short of lecherous. "I could be apologizing as we were both naked. If you'd like to try that position out, I have no objections."

He lightly ran his fingertip along her thigh, leer turning into a genuinely pleasant smile. "I'm only half kidding, of course."

For a moment, before the smile, really, Cassandra's entire body tensed. The lechery bothered her. Not because it was lechery. That was a more or less unavoidable disease among men, but rather because that lecherous look reminded her too much of the other Apollo. But when he smiled...that was something else.

He was really remarkably beautiful.

"What's the other half?" she asked, leaning up to brush her lips along his jawline. "I would really like to know."

He leaned his head back, groaning at the touch of her lips t his skin. "The part of me that is always thinking about the time in the shower, or the time at the lookout." He closed his eyes, fingers curling into her hair again.

It felt good, he decided. It felt--he would go so far as to say that it felt right.

Somewhere, he was very sure Artemis was rolling her eyes at the sudden onslaught of sentimentality.

"What about you?"

"At the risk of opening old wounds," she said, which was probably more of a risk for her than for him anyway, "I ought to remind you that I'm still quite...new. New at this."

She trailed her fingers down his side absently, lowering her eyes. "Sometimes, it's all I can think about and I..." She stumbled, looking for the words. "It confuses me, I suppose. I feel like I'm doing something wrong." Something Paris would do, she supposed. She shuddered to think that she could ever be as devoted to the pursuit of pleasure as he was. Look at what the cost had been.

Cassandra looked back up at him. "Although, somehow, the word 'wrong' seems to have gone away right now."

Apollo grimaced at that. Damn it. No matter what front she put up, she was still so young. Still, in many ways, very innocent.

He owed her some insight.

"It usually feels like that," he admitted. "At least, in the heat of the moment. You can despise someone down to your soul, but if you and that person start--" He cleared his throat, delicately. "Well, it's easy to forget about the hate until the act is over."

Cassandra nodded slightly, listening as he spoke. She supposed that if anyone knew about these things, it would be Apollo. He had several lifetimes, lovers, and children, all attesting to the fact. She wondered how naive she sounded. That didn't sit well with her. There was a terrible cost that came with innocence. The innocents always died first. The innocents were taken advantage of and used and cast aside. That wasn't who she wanted to be anymore.

Feeling the need to put up a more jaded facade, she looked away. "That's not always true," she countered. "I know that. Ajax..."

Somehow, she couldn't bring herself to finish that sentence. It wasn't something she talked about. It was easier to talk about almost anything else, even her horrible beginnings with Apollo.

"Finish it," he encouraged. And he wanted her to. They could keep meeting like this, having their frantic tumbles and shy goodbyes, but for as long as that was all these encounters were, she could keep pushing him away every time he got close.

She had to get closer to him of her own choosing. And, given everything that had happened between them, it was silly to keep secrets now.

"Ajax?"

Cassandra shook her head slightly. "I never felt any affection for him," she said flatly. "Scarcely anything at all, not even hate. He did what conquering heroes do to the defeated women. And until recently, I just assumed that's how things always worked." She remembered, clearly, Cris' disgust when she told him the story about what had happened in the temple of Athene. It was as if she were describing an alien world to him. Perhaps she was.

"But I never...forgot what he did to me...what he was doing...Not in the heat of any moment."

Ah, yes. There were also those situations, Apollo supposed.

"I did say usually," he pointed out. He wouldn't offer sympathy over the situation or rage against what had been done. He didn't feel Cassandra particularly needed or would appreciate either sentiment, not this moment. Instead, he just gently touched her cheek, brushing some of her hair back.

"Under usual circumstances, I should have said."

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