Jakob ran his hands along the curves of the sleek instrument. It was called a baroque guitar, and he believed it was Spanish in origin, though he wasn’t perfectly sure. Its potential origin made him think of Avery, and that brought mixed feelings. Avery had been his friend for a very long time, but had that turned into something different now?
Picking up the instrument, he placed his fingers over the strings and strummed lightly. It was helping him to think things through, even if it wouldn’t come to a conclusive answer. So where did that leave him? Ah yes…Avery. For at least three hundred years they had been friends, even brothers in a certain sense of the word. Certainly, he’d given Avery no end of grief with his outspoken antics and philandering ways in the early years.
Once Sister Esperanza had come into their lives, he’d toned down his outspokenness, but still philandered now and again…it had been in his nature since his breathing days, and that was unlikely to change. When Avery came out to him sometime in those three hundred years, he’d come clean and mentioned he’d had one male tryst with Gabriel when they’d first met. Truthfully he’d been very drunk off the blood he’d had, and had thought Gabriel was a female.
He could see that that revelation had hurt Avery, and he didn’t like that – not a bit. So he didn’t protest to hard when Avery cast it up to him, though it did hurt. He still didn’t think Avery had truly forgiven him, though he’d said he had. He switched up the tune he’d been playing as his thoughts turned to the events of nearly two hundred years past. Avery had had his first tryst with a member of his preferred gender, and it just happened to be with Vlad Dracula.
Jakob swore as his fingers flubbed the chord he’d been playing, and he started over. What it was that bothered him so about Avery’s tryst, he couldn’t tell. Certainly, he was upset…but was that due to the fact that he was unhappy Avery had consented to have relations with Dracula…or because it hadn’t been him? The thought he was jealous startled him, but he mulled it over. Did he feel for Avery in that way? Could he? He wasn’t sure…but he knew Avery cared for him in that fashion. He’d confessed as much.
There was more to it than confession, though. It was through deed as well. Jakob hadn’t forgotten how Avery had come to rescue him when he’d been taken prisoner by a zealous member of the Inquisition and tortured. Not only had Avery rescued him, but he’d stayed by his side and made sure he ate and recovered properly. At the time, Jakob had thought it was merely a friendly or brotherly concern, though now he could clearly see that it wasn’t.
He sighed, and stopped playing. He was no closer to an answer now then he’d been before. Perhaps he should talk to Avery sometime…perhaps not. He wasn’t certain of his feelings, and wasn’t certain Avery would well receive uncertainties in this matter. He shook his head; he needed to do something else. Putting the instrument aside, he left his room and went to the library to bury himself in a book. If he were reading, he wouldn’t have to be distracted by these thoughts.