Streets of Hope

The evening had begun in Hellfire and bullet holes, and ended in the gently heated confines of a bedroom now familiar. More japes, some more heated than others, and an unlikely man making his attraction to a young woman thousands of years younger than him as sincere and clear as could be. The incubus inhabited every molecule of the Warlock's body, and every cell radiated that now familiar lust. He wanted the selkie, of course, and the warmth of his slow, melting and fragrant kisses left little to the imagination - but his respect for her was even greater than his lust. He'd never picked particularly fetching bodies, owing to the limitations of his nature, and yet there she was, following the curve of Quint's slightly paunchy physique with her hands, dark nail polish against the purple of his pajamas.

Homely, yes - but still appreciated. Desired, in some way. Perhaps loved, one day. Those hopes gave form to all the sweet nothings Tom Magnus whispered into Aislinn McConmara's ear. They fed him more than any climax, more than any empty dalliance ever could.

If only the back of his mind could stop clamouring for more and appreciate what was on offer...

Still kissing her, masterfully teasing her tongue, Tom led Aislinn until they both sat down on the bed. "I really wish you'd been there with us," he grunted between two liplocks, voice low and smoky, charged with as much sleepiness as raw tumescence, "I think you would've understood why I'm left thinking there's still hope."

He sighed, the sound being as much a mark of satisfaction and released tension as it was one of unrequited desires. "It's an incubus thing, I guess. As long as I'm still wanting, as long as there's this hole in me needing more of you - I'm still kicking."

Crimson eyes locked onto hers, half-lidded and filled with as much tenderness as raw hunger; and he gently pulled her closer, into a hug.

"We both run hot," he said, this should make the winter nights more comfortable, a few weeks from now."

Aislinn embraced the warthog and rested her head against his shoulders, sighing contently. "Then that's something to look forward to," she murmured in his ear, her face flushing from the incubus' comment and its suggestiveness. "Even with what happened there, you managed to persevere through some pretty dark times before, I'd say," she continued, her clothed calf stroking against his shin.

"That's because I've had other people like you to light my way," he responded, his snout gently pulsating against the crook of the roane's neck. "Over four thousand years of people teaching a lonely and lovelorn monster how to open up to others... You're lucky you met me at this point in time, I've already done most of the hard work."

Contented silence fell for a few seconds, Tom's hands stroking Aislinn's back and shoulders, finding points of tension and releasing them. After kissing her once more, he gently pushed her away so they could speak.

"I want to apologize for the way I first treated you. Belial starves his prisoners for his own amusement; I could barely hold myself together for the first forty-eight hours we spent together. I've made it clear that a part of me is only interested in carnal attraction - but you deserve more, Aislinn. I've spent all those millenniums learning how to cultivate respect, and how to give it to others - and you know how I'm itching to have more to give."

He gripped her hands. "This?" he said, "What's happening right now? It already means so much to me, Aislinn. So much for all of us incubi and succubi. I don't want to rush things or to spoil what we've got going."

He chuckled softly. "I guess I'm making you the boss of this bedroom - and of whatever kind of relationship it is we have going."

Aislinn listened to him and looked up at him. "I knew you needed the sustenance, after being without it for such a long time. And my dating life had been rather stale, so I admit I sorta of jumped into it due to a strong yearning for that. I'm not immune to it, even though I have my business."

The roane scoffed lightly in amusement. "Well, there's no point in debating whether I'm physically attracted to you," she noted with a tired smile. "But we're definitely friends. If that keeps developing over time, I think that we could be more than that. You mean a lot to me already, Tom."

"And you to me," he replied. "You've been in the back of my mind, you know what I keep back there. I'd give it back to Asmodeus, but as things are..."

He briefly looked down, sighed, and then looked back up to Aislinn with a contrite smile. "You're lucky. You mortals, I mean. You want things, of course, but it's not a constant state. You can bask in the present. Enjoy what's yours, what's happening now. What you've rightfully acquired. A job, friends, safety, peace or progress...

I've meditated, I tried flagellation or days and days of prayer and fasting. I've gone rambling and backpacking, I even crashed Sigmund Freud's own office, paid him a fortune to keep my interview off the books and spilled out all of my lives - I've done everything to be consciously aware of and grateful of what is mine, even now, but..."

His smile looked a bit sad. "I want more. Not in Disney's inspiring or positive sense: I could spend you, go from room to room, ravage everyone in each room, then head downstairs and gorge myself on Bucky's reserves that I'd find myself standing outside, still starving. Still throbbing with desire. Still poking at that hole in my mind that keeps asking for more. I'll never have enough human warmth to embrace, enough tongues to taste or sweat to sense on my palms..."

His eyes closed. "All I can do is breathe, once you're asleep and once the need wakes me up, and remind myself that I have enough. That I don't need more. I'll earn more as time goes by. Because I'll have earned it, it won't go away like everything else does."

His next scoff turned into a bout of frank laughter. "All that, and all Freud thinks to ask me is how my relationship with my mother is working out! I mean, how absurdly out-of-touch can you get?!"

Aislinn joined him in his laughter for a little bit and cuddled him a little tighter. "I know you've already given me quite a bit already: your arcane expertise, your affection, and friendship. And you've shown me some of your past and what your "family" is like..." she said, using the term very lightly. "Maybe part of breaking that constant state of wanting more is to give something personal of yours, as long as you're okay with that. But the wanting could be balanced out with some reciprocation on your part. It's just a thought, but vulnerability is generally an important part of any solid relationship," she suggested.

Tom's eyes seemed to shimmer in the low light of the bedroom. "Reciprocation isn't a problem for me, Aislinn. There's so much I'd like to give you, so much I can give you..."

Again, that tiny self-deprecating scoff. "I just can't figure out how to do it for the life of me, there's just too much to handle! At the risk of being tacky, I've got a lot to give, and that's not a comment about my weight. It's just that Asmodeus makes us guarded. He creates us in a way that makes us expert takers, but clumsy gift-givers. Even then, two-thirds of my mind only ever come up with tacky and materialist crap, when I know perfectly well that's not what you want from me."

He smiled. "The best dresses, the priciest jewels, the best views and tastiest dishes - even my kisses don't matter, I know that much. I just can't... open up like you can. I'm an admittedly shallow man who's spent four thousand years digging at the bottom of his own personal wading pool with the tiny spade of hope and foolishness, trying real hard to make it out into something deep and worthy of respect.

I'm making progress, and Asmodeus' imposed limitations are falling little by little - but I still need help. This isn't Tom Magnus the Warlock who's standing here, it's Tom Magnus the Tin Man, who's still looking for his heart."

He looked down on her hands. "Based on what happened last time, you have a real knack for getting at the latches and locked doors in my subconscious..."

Tom then gave her an little impish look. "How about we slipped under the covers and saw what Dreamland has to offer?"

The mage beamed at him in a sleepy manner and gently squeezed his hand. "That sounds like a good idea. Let this subconscious lock pick in," she said, pulling the covers up around them. Aislinn laid back against him and closed her eyes, letting sleep take over.

Groaning in release, Tom pulled her close, laying on his back and looping an arm around Aislinn's shoulders. A few seconds were spent squirming, finding the exact spot his demanding nature considered as being optimal, and finally melting against the mattress and pillows. His head flopped away, his tusks preventing him from turning in the roane's direction, and he sank straight down. Aislinn would have just enough time to slip away into the land of Nod before the Warlock began snoring.

They'd both spend a while dreaming in their respective corners, flitting between hazy recollections or imagined scenarios, until something seemingly crystallized. The pall of partial awareness was lifted from Aislinn's eyes, leaving her on overcast and sandy shores that could've been Mertown's seaside docks as much as the Orkneys' late summertime coastline. Past the long reeds and loose grass, however, a curiously carved stone served as stairs leading to what looked like a sunken skyscraper, only the penthouse fully emerging above the ground. A pane of safety glass was missing from the poolyard's banister, allowing her to step onto the concrete flooring.

The penthouse looked like two blocks of glass perched on top of one another, the top one being small enough to allow for the remainder of the surface to be used as a decent balcony. The light made it difficult to see into the top floor, but the bottom one was sufficiently visible. Modern furniture with touches of artfully-sculpted driftwood, a few sprinkles of Middle-Eastern designs in Tom's preferred shades of purple and black, and glowing sigils displayed in pride of place, touches of both the warthog and her own handwriting combined. A few of the designs were protective, but some others looked like they were the product of aesthetic research, enchanted and activated for the sole purpose of glowing in breathing blue and purple patterns of light.

Stepping closer, she'd notice what must've originally been a kind of exterior changing room, a block of Industrial bricks and wide baywindows exposing brand new barber chairs and tattoo motors still sporting the glint of relative newness. Inside, the decoration was more her own, strictly speaking.

With a glint of light, one of the patio doors silently swung open, letting quiet Jazz music lazily spill out. The man who stepped out looked like Tom, but his eyes were slightly different. Instead of his uniformly red expanses, he had white sclera and red irises to offer. A few flecks of the warthog's natural browns were beginning to push through, darkening the reds and turning them to more earthen shades. Flecks of dark wine, burgundy, cocoa or chocolate. Notably, his groin's fabric wasn't tented - something that would've been inconsequential on anyone else.

Magnus, if that was indeed him, looked off to the tattoo studio and then back to Aislinn, smirking slightly. He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged.

"I felt like keeping this a secret, but I think my subconscious has other ideas... You can consider all of this as my main ambitions, I suppose, and me as the idealized Tom Magnus. I can admit that my subconscious is making you look absolutely stunning without wrestling against supernatural libido, and my mind is sufficiently at ease to appreciate all this without asking for more."

He pouted slightly. "I'd have gone for something a little less Inception-esque than a sunken skyscraper poking out of a beach a few miles west of Skara Brae, but I think your family is used to this sort of thing. At least, if I go by Meris' reputation as a dream-based Diviner..."

Tom took a few steps back and reopened the patio door. "I think your mind needed a jumping-off point, and mine was all-too-eager to contribute. See, Tom thinks he's never made any serious progress in terms of romantic involvement or his understanding of love, but that's because our nature makes it hard for him to hold on to significant memories - at least not in terms of affect. The historical data's clear as day, but what happened here," Tom said, tapping his own right breast, "no longer is."

The sedate version of the warlock shrugged. "Call it emotional amnesia if you want - another set of chains put in place by Asmodeus when the first incubi and succubi were spawned. We can alter our principles, but if we can't remember what these alterations did to us, we're more or less guaranteed to go back to the proverbial nest. As to why he hasn't tried this with others before, I'd say even his best lovers of yesteryear weren't as compatible as you can be."

The warthog smiled. "You're from a species that's needed to evolve telepathy and a few Mentalist abilities as a crutch for partial physical limitations when your pelts are on, you're descended from an Archmage, you're otherwise romantically available and you've reciprocated his interest. Him choosing you makes a lot of sense."

Aislinn was all at once amazed yet comfortable with the sight of the partly submerged penthouse decorated with touches which fit hers and Tom's personal tastes. It felt...right, even though it was something that didn't actually exist in the real world. Upon seeing the idealized version of Tom, she scoffed happily at it all.

"How very Jungian of him," she commented, smiling. "The superego version of you appearing before me in what would likely be our combined efforts at interior decorating." Her statement only confirmed the incubus' desire to eventually live together. She eyed the sedate warlock and raised an eyebrow. "So, I'm here to go on a tour of Tom's romantic past, or at least what made him the person he really is?" she inquired.