[ rp ] are you scared of me
Caius and Solomon have a bit of an argument but they love each other i promise-
A hair’s breadth from tragedy. Doru would lose himself eventually, whether it was today, or long after Solomon had left the church behind. The worry in his gut was only held at bay by his crippling frustration. To bear the tones of his companions' voices was too taxing in this state, so he walked alone. No– companions was too chummy a word. If not for the tether of their shared fate (for Solomon could not imagine there was no string connecting this all), he would let them leave without him entirely. Certainly Medallion, who seemed so sure of himself. However, that innate knowledge that Barovia was deadly was enough to keep Solomon following behind the group like a prowling dog.
Despite his quaking hands and distracted thoughts, Solomon maintained an obsessively even-and-perfect distance from the little group. Occasionally he would raise his eyes to see Luka or Med or Ireena conversing, that was enough to make him grind his teeth. When he could resist the compulsion no more, Solomon tucked his staff into his belt and picked– meticulously, aggressively– at the dried mud on his fingers and sleeves. So engrossed was he that Solomon hadn’t realized Caius had dropped to walk beside him until he heard the sing-song voice at his shoulder.
“I don’t have the patience–” Solomon interrupted, scowling down at his working hands.
His hand aches, and it’s the truest comfort he has in Barovia. Each time he splits his skin, adds a new wound to the mess of scars on his palm and lacing his arms, he finds solace in the pain. And why shouldn’t he? It’s an old friend, after all. He’s known it for years - he’s known it longer than any soul; longer than Solomon, longer than Ike. And throughout those years, it’s stayed consistent.
It grounds him in the chaos. This is turbulence of his own making, this swollen tension between the group as they travel. Solomon’s absence is an oppressive weight upon his back, as if the distance between them was a physical burden to carry, and he tolerates it only briefly. While the others converse among themselves, he slows his pace until he strides alongside the monk. He’s barely spoken his name when Solomon makes it clear he is unwelcome.
“I don’t have the patience-“
Caius’ mouth drifts shut and her fingers knead the open wound in her palm as she considers. She is no fool. The line they toe now is dangerous, but this too brings her comfort. Because it’s been here for a while too, hasn’t it?
This conflict between them, acknowledged once when they first met, then never again. This pact of theirs, and whatever else came after - it’s a storm brewing, really. Distant black clouds on the horizon, ever present and growing closer.
She considers whether or not she wants it to burst, finally. … Perhaps not here. Perhaps not now.
“Could I at least walk with you?” She tries this, instead.
Solomon chances a glance over, and his gaze falls on Caius' split palm. It's scabbed and cracked in places, but muddied and freshly bleeding where Caius peels the flesh apart. It becomes all Solomon can focus on. He says nothing to Caius' question at first. Indecisive, and transfixed. There is a warring feeling boiling in Solomon's chest: the need to clean Caius' palm, and the implacable disgust over the wound. It brings such a strong revulsion. This small slice was the cause of his turmoil, in more ways than just superficial.
His lithe hand darts out-- Solomon realizes he's picked enough for his fingers to bleed-- and closes his fingers around Caius' hand, almost tossing it away from her own offending fingers. "Stop," he demands, and lets the hand go just as quickly as he’d snatched it. "Please, for a moment of your life, stop. Stop!" Solomon's voice dissolves away into a line of endless mumbled 'stops' before he catches himself and swallows.
What else is there to say? Solomon needs a quiet place to even himself, but that opportunity was far away. Caius was Solomon's closest confidant, outside of perhaps Nial. But Nial wasn't here, and Caius was not truly the person he wished to express his doubts to at this moment. Solomon felt incredibly alone, and so when he opened his mouth to push Caius away, what instead came out was something different: accusatory, perhaps a little betrayed. "You shouldn't have fed him. I didn't agree to this. I don't care how funny you think it is."
He flinches. Not from the hand that fists around his wrist, ripping it away from his absentminded self harm and letting go as if his skin burned to touch, but from the dozens of little protests that follow. When he is first told to stop, he smiles, because for a moment Solomon’s irritation is funny ( it is the third, and perhaps final familiar thing in Barovia ). But his expression, alongside something in his chest, drops when Solomon keeps going.
"Stop. Please, for a moment of your life, stop. Stop!"
Caius does stop the third time. He stops smiling, he stops walking, and instead he - for once, in this life - listens. Solomon sounds damaged when he continues. Someone drops a little shard of ice into his veins, and the hint of cold dread spreads to the tips of his fingers. ( Caius is no stranger to conflict, but he is avoidant of consequences. “I didn’t agree to this” blooms a lump in his throat that he struggles to swallow around. Because he did this, didn’t he?
He did this, and his friend has peeled his fingers raw and his mind is in no better shape, and it’s largely his fault. )
Guilt stares him in the eyes, so he blinds himself. Becomes reactionary, like a dog. His body stiffens ( hackles up, whale eyed and uncomfortable ), and his words are a touch clipped.
“He was starving, Solomon.”
Solomon takes a few steps after Caius halts, and then stops himself. His head turns in order to keep an ear to Caius, but not his full face; a common behavior for Solomon while speaking to strangers. While Caius is no stranger, Sol feels the pull to avert his gaze anyway regardless. “All the more reason to not do what you did,” he mumbles.
Without further elaboration, Solomon takes out a piece of cloth, white and sterile, and cleans the new blood from where it clings to the corners of his nailbeds. His face flinches, not from pain but recollection, as the event unfolded again in his mind’s eye. He lifts his face to shake the rag at Caius as he adds, “What if Doru had eaten his father. Or if he fought you on letting your hand go? There was the possibility that feeding him would get us all killed. And then you disrespected the Father’s wishes, threatened me with a sword–” Solomon’s voice gets increasingly frustrated as he goes on, but he cuts himself off, grinds his teeth. “No reason to talk about it anymore. I shouldn’t expect you to understand.”
He has had three different rebuttals by the time Solomon quiets.
Donavich’s wretched name need only cross his mind to set him off. Caius’ lips press together in a hard line as a way to keep in every terrible thing he thought to say ( and he thought of many ), but perhaps his dominant reaction to it is confusion.
Why would his wishes matter? When has a slayer ever stopped to consider the wishes of a monster?
In truth, the priest only still walked the earth as man rather than wraith because Caius was not alone. What was a man who tortured as he did, for as long as he did, if not a monster? If not a rabid beast, at which he is particularly skilled at putting down?
“-threatened me with a sword-“
Dread has a heartbeat and here it pulses, bringing back that cold in a jolt to settle in his spine. He is grateful for Solomon’s sudden stop, if only because it keeps him from being able to dwell.
“No reason to talk about it anymore. I shouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“What is that meant to mean?”
He sounds defensive.
Solomon had never really liked confrontation. He startles when Caius brings out a prickly tone, and behind his shades, Solomon looks over Caius expression and weighs his answer. Part of him is still frustrated with Caius, and another part is frightened (probably the part that wishes for company). What is that meant to mean? Solomon thinks it is pretty clear what it means– they’ve travelled together long enough. I expect you would think less of a man for hoping religion could mend his son’s affliction, he considers. I expect you would think a free vampire wasn’t dangerous or a threat to innocent lives. The thought is enough to cause a dread to seep into Sol’s heart, and enough to make him bite his tongue. Ironic. Looking at Caius was nothing short of staring into the eyes of an equally threatening and dangerous being, of the same ilk as Doru. Solomon does not allow himself to consider if it was Caius in a basement somewhere. How would he feel then?
“It means we’re very different people.”
With that conclusion reached, Solomon walks back towards Caius while shuffling through his things. He produces another clean linen, and dutifully tries to hand it to Caius. Solomon points at his own palm in a silent instruction.
She takes a step away from the cloth with a level of disgust, as if it were rotten. Solomon gives them both an out from this, but hostility has already made a home in her.
“No, Solomon.”
No, she’s far too defiant to stop now. Far too afraid, too hurt, too much, too much of everything. Her palm is warm, her open wound weeps, and she gestures to him with bloody fingers.
“You cannot start this and- and just leave it here,” Solomon speaks to her like a stranger, and she responds as an enemy. She inclines her head. “Speak up. Say what you want.”
Caius recoils from him, and Solomon is surprised. It was an argument that Caius’ wanted, and with him no less! Very rarely would such a thing occur: Solomon was too calm, and Caius was too lackadaisical. But these weren’t the usual circumstances.
Under his wrappings, Solomon’s brow furrowed. Despite Caius’ demand to speak, words escaped Solomon (not that they ever came easily), and that annoyed him even more. The frustration that he’d been trying to temper flared to the surface. Angrily he grabbed at Caius’ outstretched, wounded hand and pressed the wrapping into it, attempting to begin wrapping the palm for Caius
“I don’t know what I want, or what you want me to say!” he snapped. “I’m going to be responsible now if something happens to Doru or Donavich. There are only so many vampires I can watch at once. Strahd, you, Doru– not everyone has self control! I thought you were on my side; you know what violence you’re capable of– and you were going to attack that woman at Strahd’s dinner.”
Solomon’s memories leap back to when Caius and he first met, back to the scene of carnage– the blood and mess, and Caius’ huddled form. Solomon knew Doru was not evil, just as sure as he knew Caius was certainly good. Why couldn’t Caius understand his point?
Caius does not move away a second time, and Solomon is allowed to begin wrapping her hand. She knows there is an itch on the inside of his skull that he cannot scratch, that this wound needed to be cleaned, and she is not yet angry enough to deny him it.
“I’m going to be responsible now if something happens to Doru or Donavich.”
Then he speaks, and Caius cannot stop the sharp bark of incredulous laughter from leaving her. It is at the mention of Strahd’s dinner that she reacts once more, ripping her half bandaged hand away from Solomon just to point it at him again.
“Not everything is yours to shoulder, Solomon!” She thinks she’s loud enough for the others to hear her now, because she is shouting, and she doesn’t care. “You cannot be responsible for everyone!”
Caius steps close now. Some frustrated, volatile part of her wants to grab him, but her hands are filthy and Solomon’s nerves are far too frayed. Instead, she stands chest to chest with the monk, her hands fisting and splaying at her sides. She sneers.
“Are we killing vampires who lack self control now, my love?” Her voice is lowered, like this is a secret for them and them alone. “Is that what you’d ask of me? You, who is so keen to use me as an example? I’ve killed more than that boy has, Solomon.”
Caius looks him up and down.
“I want to be on your side, so tell me what you’d have me do. Would you like one less vampire to watch over?”
Solomon, who tried his best not to be bothered by Caius' incredulous laughs, was very bothered when Caius snapped away from him. He flinched instinctively as Caius raised her voice.
“But—“
Caius prowls into his space, and despite Caius’ diminutive size, Solomon is repelled away. He steps backwards but refuses to break eye contact. Unnerving, the flexing of her hands at her sides. A fresh fear of contact shoots through him, a familiar feeling. There is grateful relief when Caius doesn’t reach for him, he feels it regardless of their argument.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Solomon growls, and tries not to be hurt hearing a pet name from Caius laced with anger. There’s tense silence. “You’re the only one— I…” and again he’s at a loss for words. Articulating what he’d meant had clearly failed, what was the point? Solomon’s hands lifted and dropped, exasperated. “What do you want me to say?” He asks.
“What do you want me to say?”
And she doesn’t know.
She wants him to tell her that he wouldn’t leave her to rot in that basement. That he would look at her, skeletal and helpless, and the first word he thought of would not be liability. That he would round on the priest in anger, that he would call him the monster he was. The thought is nearly unbearable, but perhaps she just wants him to say he would save her.
The red haze fades, and her anger becomes exhaustion. Caius breaks eye contact for her own sake, but resumes wrapping up her hand herself for his. She doesn’t know what she wants him to say, and she doesn’t know what he wants her to say - and for them, this is new.
The dhampir eyes the space between them ( and it looks back at her, taunting. It has teeth, and it smiles, because she has driven a wedge between everyone she’s ever known and here history once more repeats itself. ), and answers a question with a question.
“Are you scared of me?”
The fury in Caius calms. Solomon waits expectantly as Caius considers his question. This is more bearable, he thinks; it is much easier for Solomon to get a conversation right if he knows what Caius is looking for. Part of it might also be that Caius’ gaze has dropped away from him.
Caius’ fear of abandonment is lost on solomon; it’s not even considered. If he had to guess why Caius had implied ‘one less vampire’, it would mean that Caius was going to leave him. That implication had been enough to shut Sol up, to take a step back and to let Caius direct the conversation. Regardless of what the future might bring (or the ‘Agreement’), relinquishing Caius was a heartbreak Solomon couldn’t bear yet– indeed, perhaps never could. For a man who spent his free time fantasizing about his future to escape his present, that one detail had been excluded from his daydreams.
“Are you scared of me?”
Solomon searches Cauis’ face. This wasn’t what he’d expected. There’s a long pause, and finally realization hits. “Sometimes,” he says earnestly. “When you’re angry at me. But only then.” And he means it. The Agreement casts a shadow on his relationship with Caius, he fears that (as much as he tries to temper that fear with distance). He fears for Caius, certainly, such as when Medallion Borden has pieced together her secret or her body had been destroyed by the Bonegrinder hag.
Solomon once feared Caius, the day they’d met– all he’d had to go off of then was a bloodtrail and horrified stories. Solomon had been afraid at first, but Caius’ watery and overwhelming display of regret quickly nullified those feelings. While he certainly did not turn his back to this stranger as he silently went to work cleaning up, he understood that a monster didn’t feel guilt, and by extension Caius was not the monster he’d been told she’d be.
“I’m not afraid of you. I trust you. I’m sorry.”
There are a thousand things left to be said, but her throat closes up each time she goes to speak ( her mouth opens, and shuts, and repeats silently ). Eventually she stops trying all together, and spends a moment sitting in this mess they have made.
Solomon is afraid of her - and it isn’t unjustified. Caius wants to blame it on what she is, yet cannot escape the feeling that it is who she is. Solomon does not fear vampires. The thought is enough to make her nauseous, but Solomon is afraid of her. Her tongue clicks against the roof of her mouth in quiet thought, in acceptance.
“… I am sorry,” she says, meaning it for the first time in a long time. She wants to say more, has to in order to make this right-
“We should catch up with the others.”
“Oh.”
Solomon’s previous indignation has fizzled away in its entirety. The prospect of walking with the others is daunting, but he can tell Caius is done talking. The discomfort coils like a predator in his gut, and preys on his confidence.
He must have said something wrong again. That alone made him want to shut up.
“Ok,” he mumbles, and waits for Caius to turn and leave first.