Come Closer Ch. 02

She realized only a moment later that she was staring at the mark on his skin and forced her eyes away, moving around in front of Damien and looking down at him with the gaze of an artist... or so she told herself. Reaching out a trembling hand, she ran her fingers through his hair and brought a piece to hang down over his forehead, disheveling on purpose the flawlessness of his appearance. This action brought a smile to his lips and actually made him laugh. Jordan felt her cheeks color as she reached behind him to adjust a light, her hips pressing against his chest in a way that could be easily misconstrued. A moment later she found herself straddling his jean-clad thigh, kneeling on the model's block and gripping his shoulders for balance. She couldn't remember whether her knee had given out or whether he had tripped her into that position. The light red of Jordan's cheeks from earlier turned crimson as she heard catcalls and hisses of jealousy from the class behind her.

"Hey, Professor, can we draw this? It's the most action Jordan's gotten in years," Alex snickered as he tapped his pencil against his drawing pad.

Jordan felt Damien's body tense against her and she never turned around as she resumed fixing the light and called out, "Well, unfortunately, Alex, some of us have standards too high to allow for a blow up doll or our third cousins when we're hard up..." She glanced down at Damien and saw his surprise as she smiled and brushed her thumb against the thudding pulse in his neck.

Alex was shamed into silence.

Standing up, she brushed off her hands and stepped back far enough to appraise the situation. Damien moved back into the position she had nudged him into and looked at her with an unsmiling, but gentle gaze. Without a word she turned and walked to her easel, leaving the class's view of the model uninhibited. Leaning back against the wall behind her easel, she took a deep breath and stared at Damien for a long time.

"Do you know him?" Alyssa asked as she pretended to study Damien for her drawing, but was in actuality enthralled with his body.

"You could say that we're friends." Jordan glanced over at Alyssa and sighed.

"You're banging him? Why didn't you say so last night?" Alyssa almost dropped her pencil in surprise.

"No! Oh, god no...he's not my type." Jordan said this loud enough so Damien could hear, just to elicit a reaction.

Damien's face grew at once sad and stormy, his silver eyes turning to the color the rain-heavy clouds outside. Jordan instantly regretted what she said, but couldn't tell Alyssa that. "Oh, yeah, you know... he's only just perfect." Alyssa waved to Damien, but he didn't so much as flinch in response.

"You think? I mean, he's handsome..." Jordan's thought trailed off as she took a deep breath and turned towards her sketch pad.

"You ok?" Alyssa bit on the end of her pencil as she watched Jordan start to draw.

"I...yeah, I'm fine." Jordan swallowed the urge to say "I'm sorry" as she looked past her easel and found Damien avoiding her pleading look.

She forced herself to swallow again and started to focus on her drawing, not needing to look at Damien to draw him--everything she needed was there in her mind. Within a matter of minutes the strong lines of Damien's body, in a position completely different from the one she had posed him in, were sketched on the page. His back faced the viewer as he looked over his left shoulder, his face wracked with pain and his eyes darker than night. His right hand came up from under his left arm and clawed at the muscle of his back. The mark that trailed down from his left shoulder was distorted by the pull of his hand and the symbols at the end of the last offshoot, for the other symbol that Jordan only thought she might have seen was there too, were bleeding down his back and disappearing from his skin.

Only when she put her pencils down did Jordan realize she was crying.

"Jord? Hey, Jord? What's wrong?" Alyssa put her pencil behind her ear as she moved over and wrapped her arms around her shaking, sobbing friend.

"I'm sorry... I didn't mean what I said..." Jordan whispered against Alyssa's shoulder as she closed her eyes and wiped the tears from her face.

"Whoa..." Alyssa's grip on Jordan slackened as she turned Jordan's drawing into the light and stared at it. "How is it that you draw this in half the time it takes me to draw an outline to structure his face around?"

"I... I dunno..." Jordan brought the drawing back to its place in the shadows and looked around nervously to make sure Sam didn't hear Alyssa.

"It's really good... I don't know how or why you posed him that way, but..." Alyssa stared at Jordan for a long time and shook her head. "You sure he's not your type?"

Jordan opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She blushed a little and tore the drawing off her sketch pad carefully. Moving the pad off her easel, she stared at the very blank canvas and frowned. Canvas wouldn't work... it wasn't what she wanted. Picking up the canvas, she walked through the forest of easels carefully and moved to the back of the classroom. She returned to her easel moments later with a large piece of vellum bristol board and took out her charcoals.

Time flooded past her. The three hour class seemed like barely a breath as she wiped her fingers on a rag and stared at and elaborate background of stone and stained glass. In the center of the background was a large man-shaped white spot and Jordan felt a slight sob escape her throat at the absence there.

"Ok, my rebellious children. Your assignment for next week is to return with something to show me... god only knows what it will be, but something is the keyword... You may go." Sam groaned as he stood at the front of the class, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Jordan looked up, almost too shocked for words as she had been staring at her drawing intensely. All of the students hastily packed their drawings and supplies in waterproof covers and left the shed in some level of embarrassment, leaving Jordan alone with Damien and Sam. It was then that she realized she was still wearing Damien's shirt. Stepping meekly out from behind her easel, she saw Damien getting to his feet, the muscles along his ribs rippling as he took a deep breath.

"Damien, I can't thank you enough for this. Even though it caused some of my students considerable difficulty, namely Samantha, I think it was a valuable experience for them all. Wouldn't you agree, Jordan?"

Jordan couldn't find her voice at first and merely nodded, her face coloring all over again.

"Yes, Jordan, what did you do with your time?" Damien's voice carried with it an icy edge that cooled Jordan's blood and stabbed daggers into her flesh.

"I must admit I'm eager to see what you accomplished... I'm assuming you got past the sketching stage unlike most?" Sam smiled his smile and moved towards Jordan's easel.

A bolt of panic ran down the center of Jordan's body. "I-I-I did... I'm not very pleased with it though, it's not finished..." She ran through every excuse she could think of as she watched Damien's lips curl into a cold smirk, devoid of his usual levity.

Sam flipped the easel around unceremoniously, and stared openly at the bristol board and the sketch hanging alongside it. "My god... all of this in three hours?"

"Like I said, it's rubbish, I should probably start over."

"You do that and I'll purposely fail you... ok, maybe I'm exaggerating, but don't you dare." Sam shook his finger at Jordan before he turned to look at the abandoned easels and sighed dramatically. "They don't pay me enough for this." He moved towards them like a shepherd hopelessly trying to herd sheep without a dog.

Jordan turned to face Damien very slowly and swallowed the lump in her throat with some difficulty. "Where did that image come from?"

"It's the future, as I see it, Jordan... Now you know what's to become of me, of you... The future you've chosen for us. Pain, loneliness, darkness... I'm not your type? You'll never find a man who is then because whether you believe it or accept it your soul is mated with mine." Damien practically snarled as he gripped Jordan's shoulders until her bones ached under his hands.

"I didn't mean what I said... I was just--"

"Save it, Jordan... You've proven time and again that you don't want anything to do with me... Then I'll grant your wish. From this moment on you'll never see me again." Damien winced as he spoke and Jordan felt something like panic sweep through her body.

"What do you mean?"

"Once I leave you today, I won't return." Damien sighed as if tired and rubbed the back of his neck.

"You--"

"No, it's what you've wanted since that night in the chapel... to have your life the way it was before. You'll finally get your wish, even if it kills me."

Jordan felt like her chest was being squeezed in a vice. Breathing was impossible and she felt herself hyperventilating. The panic grew, spread, consumed her until she was on the floor, being held up by Damien's arms. "Y-you can't go..." She managed to wheeze out.

"It's what you want. I can do nothing but make sure you're happy." Damien brushed the backs of his fingers against the side of her face and slowly helped her to her feet.

"But what will happen to you?"

He shrugged as he continued to touch her face, as if memorizing it for the last time. "The same that happens to all my kind when they are rejected by their best-fit... They slowly cease to have physical form, then their spiritual form disappears, and finally all that is left is some vague essence that feels pain and nothing more." That familiar sad smile came to his face as his hand came to cup her cheek. "Don't worry about me... it's more important to any immortal that his best-fit is happy with her life." Damien leaned in and pressed the most tender of kisses to Jordan's lips, a kiss that lacked the normal spark of arousal that his lips usually caused, but one that made her heart ache and made her want to disappear into him.

She wanted to scream in pain when he broke the kiss and pulled away from her that intense comfort, that satisfying feeling of wholeness. Breathing heavily, she watched hopelessly as he picked up his coat and slipped it on before walking out of the shed, leaving her standing there wrapped in his shirt.