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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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."

Cassandra honestly didn't know how to respond to that, so she nodded. She thought she could sense some effort on Apollo's part. She didn't know what he was putting the effort into. Exactly. But it was there, like heat radiating off of his skin. Which was also very apparent and present in this particular moment. And very enjoyable.

"Well, if usual circumstances exist, I suppose I can accept that." She could have argued. Really, she seemed to enjoy arguing with him. Mostly because he rose to the occasion. But there was a change in the air now, something she couldn't name.

It was good.

"This is not the most...romantic...conversation I've ever had," she said quietly. "I wish I hadn't brought it up now."

"I am too old for romance, and you're too jaded for it," Apollo pointed out, thumb still brushing against her skin.

"Too wise to woo peaceably, I heard someone say in the marketplace the other day. I like it, I think." He looked at her curiously, one eyebrow raising. He could be wrong, of course. It wasn't unheard of--rare, but not unheard of.

"Unless you want romance?"

"No," Cassandra replied, watching him under her heavily-lidded eyes. "I prefer sincerity. And I don't think you can really have both of them at the same time."

That would be something though.

She played with his hair absently. The two of them couldn't seem to get enough of each other's hair. It was sort of curious. "You know, I've never really thought of you as being old," she said. "I'm certainly jaded. There's no question of that. But old? Intellectually, I know it's true. But the way you act...it seems young."

Cassandra lifted her head slightly, brushing her lips against his jaw. She couldn't explain what motivated her, but suddenly, she couldn't be close enough.

He leaned his head back, gratefully accepting the touch of her lips. His eyes closed as he continued speaking.

"You know what old people say a lot?" he asked and then continued without waiting for an answer. "That they don't feel old. That they feel like the same person they always were. I think a lot of way humans perceive 'old' and 'young' is just appearance. You see someone that can't run and jump and doesn't have the energy for sex--you just think they act old."

Cassandra didn't need to be told that. Observing the old men of Troy had taught her a thing or two about age. Still, it was curious to hear the observation coming from someone who was...on the outside. More on the outside than Cassandra ever was.

And then the epiphany struck her.

"I think I know why it is that things are better between us right now," she said. Her words were slow and uncertain. Not because she doubted what she was saying so much as she hesitated to say it to Apollo. Would he laugh at her?

"We have something new in common. We're both...outsiders. To humanity. Or at least, we've both experienced what that's like." She decided to rush on. She felt stupid saying that and wanted him to forget it. "Never mind. I really feel like the time for talking should have passed awhile back but you know how I am about satisfying my curiosity."

"I don't mind," he answered honestly. If he'd wanted to make her be quiet, he could have kissed her half an hour ago. She was clearly willing and receptive, but he enjoyed listening to her--especially when she wasn't chastising him or screaming.

"And you may be right," he admitted. "I don't know what it is. The situation has changed so much, I'm not sure what the trigger was."

Cassandra was pretty sure she knew what the trigger was; it was during the vampire incident, when she attacked Apollo. And she was pretty sure she knew why that was the trigger. For a moment, the balance of power had shifted between them. For the first, and probably only, time, she had been the one who could dominate him. That balance had shifted back again, but it had left them on more even footing. He still had his powers, to be certain, but they were reduced so much that maybe, just maybe, he couldn't hold them over her anymore.

Not as much anyway.

But the trigger wasn't the thing that seemed to be sustaining this affair. It had to be something else. Maybe it was an outsider's perspective. Maybe it was something else entirely. "Well," she murmured, "I'll figure it out. I need something to do besides mend broken seams."

"Well, I am very, very handsome, you know," he said with a teasing lilt to his voice. He leaned in and pushed her hair over her shoulders, planting kisses along her ear, pausing to nibble on her lobe.

His hands settled on her waist, and he was struck by how tiny it was. He liked that. It made him feel large and powerful and very manly.

"How were you expecting to resist me?"

"I've had twelve years of practice at it," she replied dryly. But she managed to smile nevertheless. Even when she was furious, even when she was insane, even when she was at her worst, there was no way to deny the fact that Apollo was, in all honesty, very, very handsome.

She glanced down at his hands on her waist. She had not been this thin, back when they met, which was saying something. Years of malnutrition had certainly done a lot of damage, but she was stronger than she looked. Lightly, she lay her hands over his.

"The better question, in my opinion, is how you plan to resist me," she countered.

Apollo gave a throaty, strained laugh as he rubbed his face against her neck. She smelled fantastic. It was overpowering--which sort of made her question that much more amusing.

"I don't plan to resist you," he announced, giving her waist a light squeeze. "I very much plan on giving in to the temptation."

She closed her eyes, enjoying the brush of his skin against hers. This was progress. She never thought she would ever get to a point in her life where she would be able to deal with his, or any man's, touch. Thankfully, she had somehow recovered that part of her humanity. And that was a very good thing, or else, she thought, she would be missing out on an experience that was very central to being human.

"Unsurprised," she murmured. Cassandra wasn't entirely sure if that was a word or not, but at the moment, she didn't particularly care.

Cassandra let go of his hands, snaking one arm around his shoulder, up into his hair. The other hand lightly trailed down his arm. This was so different from the shower. And the balcony. Despite all of her protestations to the contrary it was...romantic. And maybe even sincere. The two could go together.

Apollo slid his hands up Cassandra's legs, sliding the skirt up, until his hands rested on her thighs. He brushed his thumb against the skin there, tempted to look down, but he kept his eyes on hers.

"Is that a problem?"

Cassandra shivered. "No," she said quietly, "I don't think it is."

She swept her fingers down the side of his face, along his jaw, drawing his face forward, toward hers. Lightly, she brushed her lips against his, unable to conceal the tiniest of smirks. There was nothing at all funny about it. Maybe that's why she was so amused.

Did that even make sense?

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