Bad Blood (MxM)

Jealousy

Days went by in a similar fashion: Milo and Duke argued until the legitimate closer to them tried to prevent them from punching each other again; Damien would drag Milo to the library to separate him from Duke; everyone ended their days frustrated and scared by the lack of answers. 

The air felt heavier as the days went by like a spark would suffice to make the world explode. All of them were getting increasingly stressed and more difficult to deal with, and Milo felt they were running out of time to prepare themselves. He had decided that Matt should keep looking and testing protective spells and potions, however weak or strong they might be. For a few days, Milo debated the idea of asking Damien to help him with his own tests, enough to keep him awake until the early hours of the afternoon - for the older man to help him, he'd need to attack Milo while holding the pendulum, so the sorcerer could understand how effective his spells were. 

That prospect terrified him. If Damien accepted it, he would be actually making his worst nightmare come true: he'd be at the vampire's mercy for him to destroy according to his own desires. But with the writing was on the wall, and they did not have must time left. He could risk it with his creator, who was slowly getting more and more polite as they spent time working together, or for sure die in the hands of unknown psychopaths.

He thought Damien would accept it without any questioning. Instead, took him two extra days to make the older one agree with his idea. 

- "What if it doesn't work?"

- "If it doesn't work, I'll get my ass kicked. It's not like I don't get punched by Duke every other day". 

- "..." - Damien looked at the healing bruises on Milo's body. Most of the time he avoided paying attention to that in order to not get into it with Duke, but the younger man's nose and mouth were still in a purple-ish color after his first fight with their leader. Since then, the oldest vampire knew better not to keep touching Milo - which did not stop them to throw punches at each other on a few occasions, mostly because the sorcerer was dead set on pissing Duke off as much as possible. Milo's detachment from his own physical well-being shocked the vampire. 

- "How about we don't do that?"

- "We do not have an option, Damien. If it's not you, it'll be Petr or Andrej, but I have to test my spells. I have ways of protecting myself and nothing serious is going to happen, but I do need to test my ideas". - Milo asserted again, a bit more serious. He was almost sure his plans would not succeed, but his idea was to create protections that would buy his clan enough time for them to battle instead of being slaughtered.

The vampire only changed his mind when Milo apparently gave up and asked Andrej for help. Damien stopped them as soon as he heard them talking about it, his brooding face showing clearly how unamused he was. 

- "Stop messing around. He's not going to do it".

- "It is okay, Damien, I can help" - Andrej grinned maliciously. Milo was not an easy person to deal with, and even though they were getting along better - Petr's little piano sessions got Milo mesmerized every night, making him a lot softer and nicer to deal with - he was still very much looking to make the sorcerer rethink his attitudes. However, he was not crazy to do it without provocation, since he knew Damien would absolutely kick his teeth in if he tried.

- "I told you you won't" - Damien's voice was louder now, showing he would not accept any arguing about that. The tip of his fangs appeared by the sides of his mouth and his eyes got a deeper shade of red as he faced Andrej. The demon got the hint and simply shrugged before leaving the room.

- "Shit, Damien, I need to test my hypothesis! You won't help and won't let anyone help me?! I must look for someone in the streets, is that what you're saying?" - Milo groaned, frustrated and angry, feeling the pressure of the time weighting on his shoulder as the vampire was focused on being stubborn.