Blood Bourbon

Proposals

Ryker had lay with Daryl for far longer than he intended. Not sleeping, but drifting in an odd sort of peaceful contentedness that he felt like he could exist in forever. The longer he held on to the human, the more natural it seemed. His body relaxing and familiarizing itself with Daryl's until it was too late. At some point during those early morning hours, as he memorized the man's sleeping heartbeat and breathing rhythm, his traitorous heart had done the unthinkable.

It realized who and what this man was, even if it was a conclusion that he had been working towards for months now. The realization hit him like a freight train and he would have run from it if he could have. He had even slipped out of bed and paced away, only to feel that tug, that draw, holding him in place.

He couldn't let Daryl go without a great deal of pain and suffering to both of them. It was possible, anything was possible, there was no life ending consequences for letting one's mate go. It happened, sometimes your soul recognized a mate in someone who your mind and heart couldn't ever accept. Sometimes they died. Sometimes you just didn't have time for it.

But Ryker had never had anything of his own. And he was damned if he was going to give this up without one hell of a fight.

"Damn you, you annoyingly stubborn and trouble attracting human." Ryker muttered, snarling silently to himself and grabbing his work tablet from his bag, before shifting back into bed and falling into a comfortable companionship with the sleeping cowboy. There wasn't a moment in the following hours that he wasn't touching Daryl in some way, whether it be the cowboy reaching out and sliding a hand along his thigh in maddeningly innocent sensuality, or just Ryker's leg brushing against the man's shoulder.

He worked idly, not with anything major to do, but more to keep his mind unfocused as he thought through all the issues that this relationship entailed. One thing he knew, Daryl would have to make a choice about the whole thing. And he couldn't expect the man to make a choice without knowing mostly everything. Which meant that Ryker had to find a way to properly break it to the cowboy that he wasn't human.

Then, somehow convince him that despite the fact that Ryker had done his best to avoid anything particularly meaningful, they needed to be together. And that if they currently were enjoying an open relationship, Ryker would really need that to stop.

To avoid killing anyone.

He was googling Human dating rituals, wondering if any of what him and Daryl had constituted as a 21st century date, when Daryl's phone started ringing.

Ryker was tempted to answer it, to find out who the unknown number was, but he had just read something about trust and privacy and respect in the webpages that really didn't give him a consistent answer about how to go about being in a relationship.

With a sigh, he hit the button to silence the ring and let the call go through to voicemail and continued scrolling. About an hour later, another number called through, again unknown. His curiosity was killing him but he promised himself that he would check it out if it happened a third time. But Daryl began to shift out of the deep slumber he had been in not long after that.

Watching his human wake up was more than his bitter, cynical psyche could handle. He heard the change in breathing and heart rate, saw Daryl's peaceful expression shift to contentment, and then something akin to worry and finally a blank sort of acceptance. Though the look of happiness and surprise that flashed unknowingly on his cowboy's features when those eyes opened up and focused on him was enough to stop Ryker's heart.

Yes he was here. No he wasn't going anywhere. Deal with it.

He wanted to spend the rest of the next millennia in bed with Daryl, but Daryl was a human and had certain needs, and Ryker realized he hadn't fed in a fair amount of time himself.

It would be a slow process, but he consciously stopped making his movements look human, wondering if it would soften the blow when Daryl realized he was not even the same species. He had barely realized he had slowed himself down, made himself noisier, hiding through being observable while around Daryl, until he started to consciously stop himself from doing it.

Ryker also wondered who the hell he could talk to about this decision of his. The vampires he was closest to, other than the random hookups he kept on speed dial in his phone, was Tim and maybe Alesky.

Though he wasn't sure how... invested they would be in the concept of him finding his mate. Daryl was a weird enough curveball, let alone throwing in the emotional and physical attachment to Ryker.

Instead of brooding on that, Ryker distracted himself with the curiosity of the phone calls, bugging Daryl about it until the man finally called through to his voice mail while Ryker picked up the phone to order breakfast. Waffles plus a bottle of the good stuff for him, french toast with black coffee for Daryl.

He forced himself not to eavesdrop, because the advice online told him that people needed to be trusted and Daryl would want privacy. And he assumed that meant that Daryl wouldn't like him knowing everything without Daryl telling him on his own time. But he turned to give the man a curious look as they both hung up at the same time, "so, who's calling you?"

"First one... was that company I interviewed for. They want to meet me next week... they're emailing me some specs and want me to come up with a rough concept.... They're going to decide between me and a couple others then." Daryl frowned down at the phone, shivering slightly. "I figured I'd tanked that interview."

"On purpose?" Another thing he needed to cover, is just what happened during Daryl's hospital stays that made him so reluctant to be trapped inside. And disinterested in horror movies. How were those two things connected? If at all.

Daryl laughed softly and looked up to him, "no. I mean, it's not like I'm hankering for the job, but I did my best. I just haven't done much in a long while."

Ryker nodded thoughtfully, watching the man, wondering if he was even contemplating trying for it. Wondering if Knight Corp was an investor or umbrella company for whatever firm was interviewing Daryl. Or if... damn it. Ryker made a mental note to figure out if the company was behind this firm and trying to get to Daryl through a back door.

"What about the second one?"

"Serena Clark." Daryl rolled his eyes and looked up to him, "don't know how she got my number. Probably Oscar or something. She wants to do dinner sometime while I'm in town. I guess Charlie finally deflected her back to me."

"She's the one who wants to buy your farm, right?" Ryker hummed softly, pausing when Daryl gave him a curious look, "she was flirting with me the whole time during the show. Bragging about owning all the lucrative contracts and such. She seemed pretty interested in you, in other ways, too."

"Yeah. Knowing her, she'd probably try to convince me to marry her, just so she could pull us into her daddy's empire." Daryl offered a shrug.

Ryker froze, letting out a slow breath, " you're not looking to marry, are you?"

The cowboy looked up to him quickly, tilting his head to the side, breaking out in a teasing grin, "is that a proposal, Ryker?"

"I... uh..." Ryker's mind went blank, and he shook his head, turning and stalking to where his suitcase was, tossing Daryl a loose pair of jogging pants while he pulled on a pair of shorts. The elevator doors were opening, and he could hear roomservice approaching down the hallway. "No. But, I was going to ask you if you... like... you'd ever consider going on a date?"

"With you?" Daryl looked at the pants for a moment, before shrugging and pulling them on, offering another lopsided smile. Before Ryker could really begin to doubt himself, Daryl nodded, "yeah. I guess we could do that. I'd... never thought about it. You... well. I like you. But I don't know how the whole... dating another man works."

"That's probably the least complicated part of us." Ryker laughed and walked to the door, glancing through the viewing port and pulling the door open before the shapeshifter could knock.